TO THE LITTLE SPINNERS.
by Robert Herrick


YE pretty housewives, would ye know
The work that I would put ye to ?
This, this it should be : for to spin
A lawn for me, so fine and thin
As it might serve me for my skin.
For cruel love has me so whipp'd
That of my skin I all am stripp'd ;
And shall despair that any art
Can ease the rawness or the smart,
Unless you skin again each part.
Which mercy if you will but do,
I call all maids to witness to
What here I promise : that no broom
Shall now or ever after come
To wrong a spinner or her loom.


Spinners, spiders.

  Velazquez. Las Hilanderas (The Spinners). c. 1657
Velázquez. Las Hilanderas (The Spinners). c. 1657.

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol I.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 204.


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