Poetry: ‘Washing Day’ by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Published on Saturday 11 February 2012 00:00

LAUTUS Press’s Washing Lines is an anthology devoted to laundry – a little book redolent of the smell of hot suds and starch.

Some of the poems are eloquent on the pleasure of hanging washing on a spring day, but others chronicle the disruption and steamy hard work that washing day brought. This is an extract from “Washing Day” by Mrs Barbauld (1743-1825), and there is something about that “week, smooth sliding after week” which still echoes our working routines.

Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded Washing-Day.

- Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,

With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day

Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on

Too soon; for to that day nor peace belongs

Nor comfort; ere the first grey streak of dawn,

The red-arm’d washers come and chase repose.

Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth,

E’er visited that day: the very cat,

From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth,

Visits the parlour, an unwonted guest.

The silent breakfast-meal is soon dispatch’d

Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks

Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower.

From that last evil, oh preserve us, heavens!

For should the skies pour down, adieu to all

Remains of quiet; then expect to hear

Of sad disasters - dirt and gravel stains

Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once

Snapped short - and linen-horse by dog thrown down,

And all the petty miseries of life.

Saints have been calm while stretched upon the rack,

And Guatimozin smil’d on burning coals;

But never yet did housewife notable

Greet with a smile a rainy washing-day.

• You can borrow Washing Lines (Lautus Press, £10), from the Scottish Poetry Library, 5 Crichton’s Close, Edinburgh EH8 8DT. Tel: [phone], e-mail [e-mail] or see www.spl.org.uk for details.

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