Rose Standish Does the Laundry

"Ho Rose!" quoth the stout Miles Standish,
As he stood on the Mayflower's deck,
And gazed on the sandy coast-line
That loomed as a misty speck.

"On the edge of the distant offing;
See! yonder we have in view
Bartholomew Gosnold's 'headlands.'
'Twas in sixteen hundred and two

"That the Concord of Dartmouth anchored
Just there where the beach is broad
And the merry old captain named it
(Half swamped by the fish)--Cape Cod.

"And so as his mighty 'headlands'
Are scarcely a league away,
What say you to landing, sweetheart,
And having a washing-day?"

"Dear heart"--and the sweet Rose Standish
Looked up with a tear in her eye;
She was back in the flag-stoned kitchen
Where she watched, in the days gone by;

Her mother among her maidens
(She should watch them no more, alas!),
And saw as they stretched the linen
To bleach on the Suffolk grass.

In a moment her brow was cloudless,
As she leaned on the vessel's rail,
And thought of the sea-stained garments,
Of coif and farthingale;

And doublets of fine Welsh flannel,
The tuckers and homespun gowns,
And piles of the hose knitted
From wool of the Devon downs.

So the matrons aboard the Mayflower
Made ready with eager hand
To drop from the decks their baskets
As soon as the prow touched land.

And there did the Pilgrim Mothers,
"On a Monday," the record says,
Ordain for their new-found England
The first of her washing-days.

And there did the Pilgrim Fathers,
With matchlock and axe well slung,
Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles
That propt on the crotches hung.

For the trail of the startle savage
Was over the marshy grass,
And the glint of his eyes kept peering
Through cedar and sassafras.

And the children were mad with pleasure
As they gathered the twigs in sheaves
And piled on the fire the branches
And heaped up the autumn leaves.

"Do the thing that is next," saith the proverb,
And a nobler shall yet succeed:
'Tis the motive exalts the action;
'Tis the doing, and not the deed;

For the earliest act of the heroes
Whose fame has a world-wide sway
Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
And order a washing day!

-Margaret Preston, "The First Proclamation"

***

It was my great honor to read this poem at our 4th of July festivities. My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of laundry!"