Poetry IV

Like Ellen Johnston, Ethel Carnie was employed in the cotton mills from a young age. She composed her poems whilst working the loom.
Profoundly touching words about possession in her poem, here - aptly entitled, ‘Possesion’.
(More information about Carnie can be found on my main webpage - you're welcome and it's a pleasure, I'm sure) 

​There bloomed by my cottage door
A  rose with a heart scented sweet
O so lovely and fair, that I plucked it one day;
Laid it over my own heart’s quick beat.
In a moment its petals were shed,
Just a tiny white mound at my feet.
 
There flew through my casement low
A linnet who richly could sing;
Sang so thrillingly sweet I could not let it go,
But must cage it, the glad, pretty thing,
But it died in the cage I had made,
Not a note to my chamber would it bring.
 
There came to my lonely soul
A friend I had waited for long;
And the deep chilly silence lay stricken and dead,
Pierced to death by our love and our song.
And I thought on the bird and the flower,
And my soul in its knowledge grew strong.
 
Go out when thou wilt, O friend –
Sing thy song, roam the world glad and free;
By the holding I lose, by the giving I gain,
​And the gods cannot take thee from me;
For a song and a scent on the wind
Shall drift in through the doorway from thee.

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