Gray old spinners,
Weaving with the crafty fibers of your souls;
Nothing was given you but those impalpable threads.
Yet you have bound the race,
Stranglers,
With your silver spun mysteries.
All the cruel,
All the mad,
The foolish,
And the beautiful, too:
It all belongs to you
Since the first time
That you began to drop the filmy threads
When the world was half asleep.
Sometimes you are young girls;
Sometimes there are roses in your hair.
But I know you--
Sitting back there in the hollow shadows of your wombs.
The crafty fibers of your souls
Are woven in and out
With the fibers of life.
