Through the dim window, I could see
The little room—a sordid square
Of helter-skelter penury:
Piano, whatnot, splintered chair....
It is so small a room that I
Seem almost at the woman’s side:
Galled jade—too fat for vanity,
And far too frankly old for pride.
Her greasy apron ’round her waist;
The dish cloth by her on the chair;
As if in some wild headlong haste,
She has come in and settled there.
Grimly she bends her back and tries
To stab the keys, with heavy hand;
A child’s first finger exercise
Before her on the music stand.
_David Morton_
David Morton was born at Elkton, Kentucky, February 21, 1886. He
graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1909, engaging in newspaper
work immediately thereafter. After ten years of writing for various
papers in the South, Morton came to New Jersey, where he now lives,
being teacher of English at Morristown High School.
The greater part of Morton’s work is in the sonnet form, a form into
which he has carried a new warmth without sacrificing the old
dignity. The best of these verses are to be found in his first
volume, _Ships in Harbor and Other Poems_.