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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUMMER-DAWN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Come, lad, get up, or we'll be late
Last Line: Together into the dawn.]


Persons:

LABAN CARPENTER, a hind.
BETTY CARPENTER, his wife.

Scene: LABAN CARPENTER'S cottage, before dawn. LABAN
still lies in bed, dozing; but his wife is already
dressed; and is setting the kettle on a newly-lit
fire. In the bed, beside LABAN, is a six-months old
baby; and, in another bed, are five children, all
under the age of seven; the boys sleeping

BETTY. Come, lad, get up, or we'll be late.
LABAN. So soon, lass! What o'clock is it?
BETTY. It's getting on for three.
The fire is kindling famously:
I'll have the kettle boiling in a twinkling.
We'll have a sup of tea, before we start,
To keep the bitter chill out.
It's raw work, turning out these dewy mornings.
LABAN. It seems but half-an-hour ago,
Since I lay down in bed.
BETTY. Nay, Laban, it was half-past ten,
At most, when you turned in.
You'd scarcely got your trousers off,
Before you dropt asleep;
And, you were snoring, like a pig,
Until I turned you off your back.
'Twas nigh eleven, when I got to bed.
LABAN. I can't tell how you manage.
A man must have his sleep out,
If he's to do his day's work:
But, women, somehow, seem...
BETTY. Come, lad, don't lie there, talking:
But, stir yourself...
LABAN. My back is nearly broken.
BETTY. Ay, some folk's backs are broken easily.
LABAN. You call it easily!
It's easy, hoeing turnips, every night,
Until it is too dark to see our feet;
And then, to start again, at dawn:
And, Summer-nights so short!
BETTY. If Summer-nights were longer,
Your children would go shoeless through the Winter.
LABAN. And still, it's heavy on a man,
As well as all his day's work.
BETTY. Have I no day's work, too?
Your day's work will not keep you, housed and fed --
You, and your wife, and children.
And if your father'd talked like that,
Lad, where would you be now?
He can have been no lie-abed:
He'd not a lazy bone in all his body.
You've heard him boast, a hundred times:
"Though I have had bad seasons,
I've not done far amiss:
Since I have reared eleven men and women."
Ay! and your mother, crippled with rheumatics,
For more than half her lifetime:
And only him to do the housework;
And see to all the lot of you,
And keep you decent, single-handed,
Until the girls were old enough,
As well as all his day's work.
You talk of day's work!
Why, I've heard him tell,
How, once, to save the corn,
He worked a week, without a wink of sleep:
All day, at his own job in Stobshill mine:
And, all night, helping in the harvest-field.
LABAN. And then, he slept...
BETTY. He slept his fill:
But, not till all was harvested.
He saved the corn.
LABAN. Ay: somehow, fathers...
BETTY. You're a father, too:
And should think shame to lie and grumble there;
And only be too glad that we are able
To earn a little extra in the Summer,
To tide us over Winter.
LABAN. True, wife, true:
And yet, it's hard that, in an honest day's work,
A strong man cannot earn enough
To keep his wife and family.
BETTY. Twelve shillings won't go far,
With rents so high,
And food, and clothes, and firing.
But I have naught to grumble at:
I only have six babes to feed:
My mother had thirteen;
And ten of us were born,
After my father lost his sight,
While blasting in the quarry.
And she'd three babes-in-arms, at once --
The twins, and Dick.
I've heard her say that, ere the boy was born,
While she lay sick in bed, and near her time,
Her two, poor helpless babies at the bed-foot,
Sat up, with big eyes, watching her,
As good as gold;
And she, poor woman, wondering,
How ever she would nurse the three, at once.
I cannot think how she got through, at all:
But, when I used to ask her, she would answer:
"Ay! looking back, you wonder how you managed;
But, at the time, each single thing you do for them
Makes you yourself so happy,
That you think nothing of it."
And mother had the truth of things.
And we're quite rich to her --
She'd hoe, a summer's day, for sixpence:
And spent her life's best years in picking stones.
She only had one holiday,
That ever I heard tell of:
And that, when she'd been married fourteen years.
She went to see her cousin at the Stell:
And rode both ways in Farmer Thomson's pig-cart;
And, ever afterwards, she said;
She couldn't tell why folks liked holidays,
Or why they need go seeking happiness,
While they had homes to work in;
And that, for her part, she found little pleasure
In sitting still all day,
In other people's houses, with cold legs,
And idle, folded hands,
When there was darning to be done at home,
And one's own hearth to sit by;
Though there was little sitting down for her,
At any time at all.
She couldn't rest;
Up first, and last to bed,
I never saw her quiet, till the end.
She always hoped that death would find her working,
Her wish was granted her...
Death found her at the job she liked the best...
The clothes she washed that week were left for me to iron...
Ay, mother knew what hardship was;
And laboured, day and night, to rear her children.
LABAN. It's ever children, children!
A woman slaves her very life away
To rear her children;
And they grow up and slave their lives away
To rear their children.
We little thought, lass, when we married!
Do you remember the fine Summer-nights,
When first we walked together?
Ah, those were happy times!
We little thought...
BETTY. You little thought;
I knew.
Yes; those were happy times;
No girl was ever happier than I was,
When first I walked with you in Malden Meadows:
But I am happy now, for all the difference.
Life was not over easy, even then:
They worked me sorely at the farm,
Though I was but a child.
On Monday mornings, we were up at one,
To get the washing through,
Before the day's work started.
I wasn't fifteen then; but I remember
The coastguards whistling to us,
As they passed the lighted window,
On the cold, black Winter-mornings.
And often, I'd been working many hours,
Before you turned out with your team.
I used to think that you went bravely, Laban,
Behind your dappled horses.
LABAN. Ay! then I little knew --
I little knew that life was labour, labour,
And labour till the end.
I thought that there'd be ease, somewhere. [Rises and
begins to dress.]
BETTY. If men will marry, and have children,
They must not look for ease.
Yet, husband, you'd not be a boy again,
Unwedded...
LABAN. Nay! I couldn't do without you.
BETTY. But, you've too many children?
Too many hungry mouths to fill,
Too many little feet to keep in leather!
And can you look upon them, sleeping there,
(My father ne'er set eyes on me, poor fellow!)
And talk like that?
And is it Tommy you would be without?
You've had him longest; and perhaps you're tired...
LABAN. Nay, wife: he was the first;
And you were such a girl -- just seventeen!
And I, but two years older.
Do you remember, lass, how proud...
BETTY. Or is it Nell, who brings your bait to you?
LABAN. She grows more like her mother every day.
BETTY. It must be Robin, then,
That all the neighbours say takes after you.
LABAN. He's got my temper, sure enough,
The little Turk!
BETTY. Or Kit and Kate the twins?
They're surely twice too much for you.
LABAN. Folk say that never such a pair
Was seen in all the countryside.
BETTY. There's just the baby left.
Poor little mite, so you're the one too many!
LABAN. Come, Betty, come!
Enough of teasing!
You know that I was only talking;
I'm ready, now, for work.
BETTY. The kettle's boiling. [She makes the tea, and
fills two mugs.]
Drink it up;
'Twill help to keep the chill out.
LABAN. Ay; but it's dank work, hoeing swedes at dawn.
BETTY. The sun will soon be up.
LABAN. The sun gets up a deal too soon for me.
BETTY. Nay; never rail against the sun.
I'd sooner, lad, be shut away from you,
Than from the sunshine, any day.
I'll never hear a word against the sun.

[They take up their hoes from behind the door, give a
last look at their sleeping children, and go out
together into the dawn.]





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