food,
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashions it and knows it good,
By instinct's strong and sacred laws.

No tenuous threads to weave her nest,
She seeks and gathers there or here;
But spins it from her faithful breast,
Renewing still, till leaves are sere.

Then, worn with toil, and tired of life,
In vain her shining traps are set.
Her frost hath hushed the insect strife
And gilded flies her charm forget.

But swinging in the snares she spun,
She sways to every wintry wind:
Her joy, her toil, her errand done,
Her corse the sport of storms unkind.

The symbolism of these verses will appear to you more significant when I
tell you that it refers especially to conditions in New England in the
present period. The finest American population--perhaps the finest
Anglo-Saxons ever produced--were the New Englanders of the early part of
the century. But with the growth of the new century, the men found
themselves attracted elsewhere, especially westward; their shrewdness,
their energies, their inventiveness, were needed in newer regions. And
they wandered away by thousands and thousands, never to come back again,
and leaving the women behind them. Gradually the place of these men was
taken by immigrants of inferior development--but the New England women had
nothing to hope for from these strangers. The bravest of them also went
away to other states; but myriads who could not go were condemned by
circumstances to stay and earn their living by hard work without any
prospect of happy marriage. The difficulty which a girl of culture may
experience in trying to live by the work of her hands in New England is
something not easily imagined. But it is getting to be the same in most
Western countries. Such a girl is watching a spider weaving in the corner
of the same room where she herself is weaving; and she thinks, "Am I not
like that spider, obliged to supply my every need by the work of my own
hands, without sympathy, without friends? The spider will spin and catch
flies until the autumn comes; then she will die. Perhaps I too must
continue to spin until the autumn of my own life--until I become too old
to work hard, and die of cold and of exhaustion."

Poor sister of the spinster clan!
I too from out my store within
My daily life and living plan,
My home, my rest, my pleasure spin.

I know thy heart when heartless hands
Sweep all that hard-earned web away;
Destroy