THE ONAMATA SAMPLER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20274, 7 April 1934, Page 23 (Supplement)

THE ONAMATA SAMPLER.

(Elizabeth Ann Pring, only eight years old. Her work in April, 1732.) AUTUMN POEM. Only a fading canvas square, Set in a tarnished frame; A quaint small house and stiff brown trees— Six of them—all the same. Two green birds in a pale grey sky, An arch and a trellised wall: Three ladies in hoops and towering toques, Paying a morning call. April sunshine on falling leaves In a land across the sea; A prim little figure with ribboned sleeves, The canvas spread on her knee, Patiently stitching, day by day, In the golden autumn sun, Longing so often to run and play, If her task were only done. The patient work of a leisured age. The motto is dim and worn; A small brown spot shows a needle-prick, And a strand or two is torn. In a land whose name she never heard, To kin she never knew, Her “precept” speaks from its ancient fame: “ Let love ever dwell with you.” In an English shire of a stately dame, Old family letters tell, Her girls were held “in great esteeme,” Her sons served England well. But I see her on a three-legged stool, With sweet, small face aglow; Elizabeth Ann—who was eight years old Two hundred years ago. (Copied.) Celia Elliott (11 years), Hurunui.