Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1894-02-16
MISCELLANY.



In seventeen hundred seventy-two.
Did the good maiden, Prudence True,
A sanity soul, devoid of guilt,
Begin her famous crazy quilt,
And told her helpmeet, Goodman True,
She'd finish in a month or two;
And Goodman True, as good men do,
Believed his good wife Prudence True.
And when he found his supper late,
Brave Goodman True in silence safe,
And waited till his good wife built
Another square Of crazy quilt.
He did not rave or loudly speak
Much married life had made him meek
For he had learned from his sweet bride
A husband part is to suhside.
To sit serene. compose and dumb.
And in domestic peace suCCumb.
He on the martyr plan was built,
And lived martyr TO that quit.
Good Prudence True. as good danes do,
Each day her loved task would pursue,
Each evening her bra We husband tried
To look content and edited.
And those slow. patient hours beguile
With his sad. long enduring SMILE
Long years did that poor, sad soul wilt.
Then died al last-ot crazy quilt
Long years passed ON and W idOw Prue
TOiled on, as all good widows do,
And in her calm secusiOn cured,
Heard not the voices Of the world.
The echoes Of the Concord fight
The battle fought on Runker's Height,
i
That scared King George upon his throne,
She needed as trivial thing.
For what are cOnqueror or king
To a good dame whose life is built
Into her darling crazy quilt
She never thought if she preferred
George Washington to George the Third;
Her quilt was life supremest thing
Both under President and King;
While loyal TO her quilt and true,
fhnuulrf . ltnnrpn WnnI0
Gray. full of years. the good soul died,
And passed on to the glOrlfied,
And left this scene of woe and guilt
And her unfinished crazy quilt.
And then her youngest daughter Ruth,
In all the hUpefulness of youth,
That knows no obstacle or fears,
Took up the mighty task Of years.
Her smile was sweet, her eyes were bright,
Her touch was fairy-lke and light
And lovers read within her eyes
The tale of happy destinies.
And many came and kuelt and sued,
But on her quilt her eyes were glued
She saw them not as there they knelt-
Loves hurting dart she never felt
But gave them all to understand
She had mission great and grand,
A noble and exalted ann
Beyond preposterOus Cupids claim;
A great ambition, grand and high,
To finish up that quilt and die.
AND brave Ruth kept her purpose good
Through fOrescOre years of madenhood.
And so she lived and died a maid.
And when she in the grave was laid,
Her sisters Youngest daughter Sue,
Took her unfinished quilt to do
Meantime old empires passed away.
Old kingdoms fell in slow decay,
And senie nOnarChsweary grown
Slipped Gown from many ttering throne
Old realms were conquered by their foes.
l. dam ff.1l a.,v.
And long engeEdered wars that rent
The bases of continent
Swept on their path of fire and death
And shrivelled with their fatal breath
The slow built fabric of the years
And left a track of blood and tears
But while the whirling world did range
AdOwn the ringing grooves Of change"
While time 5 resstleSS current flowed
Young Sue she sewed and sewed and sewed
And sewed and sewed and slowly built
The squares upon that crazy quilt.
And now she's cd and bent and gray,
Her youthful friends have passed away,
Her loving husbands tomb is built
But she still works upon her quilt,
And now, deserted and fOrlurn.
To generations yet unborn,
When she has left this world of guilt
She il pass along her crazy quilt.
In six short days the world was done.
The world, the plane Is and the sun;
But III hundred years are built
Traction of crazy quilt
am Walter fOSS IN the Netc York Stltduj
bune.