| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
| |
| Kivers |
| | | Ann Cobb |
| |
| |
| YES, I’ve sev’ral kivers 1 you can see; | |
| ’Light, and hitch your beastie in the shade! | |
| I don’t foller weaving now so free, | |
| And all my purtiest ones my forebears made. | |
| Home-dyed colors kindly meller down | 5 |
| Better than these new fotched-on ones from town. | |
| |
| I ricollect my granny at the loom | |
| Weaving that blue one yonder on the bed. | |
| She put the shuttle by and laid in tomb. | |
| Her word was I could claim hit when I wed. | 10 |
| “Flower of Edinboro’” was hit’s name, | |
| Betokening the land from which she came. | |
| |
| Nary a daughter have I for the boon, | |
| But there’s my son’s wife, from the level land, | |
| She took the night with us at harvest-moon,— | 15 |
| A comely, fair young maid, with loving hand. | |
| I gave her three—“Sunrise” and “Trailing Vine” | |
| And “Young Man’s Fancy.” She admired ’em fine. | |
| |
| That green one mostly wrops around the bread; | |
| “Tennessee Lace’“ I take to ride behind’. | 20 |
| Hither and yon right smart of them have fled. | |
| Inside the chest I keep my choicest kind— | |
| “Pine-Bloom,” and “St. Ann’s Robe” (of hickory brown), | |
| “Star of the East” (that yaller’s fading down!). | |
| |
| The Rose? I wove hit courting, long ago,— | 25 |
| Not Simon, though he’s proper kind of heart— | |
| His name was Hugh—the fever laid him low— | |
| I allus keep that kiver set apart. | |
| “Rose of the Valley,” he would laugh and say, | |
| “The kiver’s favoring your face today!” | 30 |
| | Note 1. In the Kentucky mountains for generations the sole outlet for the artistic sense of the women has been the weaving of woolen coverlets, many of them of elaborate pattern and rare beauty.
The Outlook [back] |
| |
|
|
|
