MERE MARONNIERE.
The snow is on the sea-board Alps That on the coast keep guard; The demon mistral flays and scalps The trees, and harries hard The leaves of planes in golden rains Along the boulevard. From pippin-cheeks beside her stove Mere Maronniere looks down Along the gusty plane-tree grove That casts its golden crown About the feet of those that meet Within the ancient town. Ancient is she, and yearly there Beside her stove she sits. The pippin-faced Mere Maronniere That roasts her nuts and knits, And earns a sou from me and you, And warms her five old wits. Sometimes upon her lap will go Her thread and knitting-stick And then ake’ll pray with lips most slow But fingers %eiy quick, To count her beads—a task that needs Divine arithmetic. There he who at her picture laugh, And nod and wink and stare; But fair befall her epitaph When she’s no longer there— A song that’s writ, a shawl that’s knit, A rosary of pray’r. -Wilfrid Thorley, in the Saturday Review.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19260720.2.249.1
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 3775, 20 July 1926, Page 74
Word Count
173MERE MARONNIERE. Otago Witness, Issue 3775, 20 July 1926, Page 74
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