Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver

"Son," said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
"You've need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
"There's nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.
"There's nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,

The unsellable harp

The harp has a **woman's head**—likely the mother herself. It's the one valuable thing they own, but it's too personal or strange to sell. This object will transform the whole poem.

And a harp with a woman's head
Nobody will buy,"
And she began to cry.
That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
"Son," she said, "the sight of you
Makes your mother's blood crawl,—

Blood crawl

Extreme phrase for a mother looking at her child. She's not just worried—she's physically revolted by her failure to clothe him. The poverty is making her feel monstrous.

"Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you'll get a jacket from
God above knows.
"It's lucky for me, lad,

Daddy's in the ground

First mention of the absent father. She's a widow, which explains the poverty—no income, no male breadwinner in 1920s America. The shame is about failing his memory.

Your daddy's in the ground,
And can't see the way I let
His son go around!"
And she made a queer sound.
That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I'd not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.
I couldn't go to school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
Passed our way.
"Son," said my mother,
"Come, climb into my lap,
And I'll chafe your little bones
While you take a nap."
And, oh, but we were silly
For half an hour or more,
Me with my long legs
Dragging on the floor,
A-rock-rock-rocking
To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour's time!
But there was I, a great boy,

Great boy

He's old enough to feel embarrassed being rocked like a baby. The poem keeps emphasizing his age and size—he's aware of how others see them, which adds social shame to physical poverty.

And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a daft way?
Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
And food was dear.

Wolf's head wind

Fairy tale language entering the realistic poverty narrative. The poem is starting to shift registers, preparing us for magic.

A wind with a wolf's head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat upon the floor.
All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn't break,
And the harp with a woman's head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity's sake.
The night before Christmas
I cried with the cold,
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year-old.
And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes.
I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
From I couldn't tell where,
Looking nineteen,

Looking nineteen

She's transformed, younger, in mysterious light. This is the first fully supernatural moment—we've left realism behind. The vision happens twice, bracketing the weaving scene.

And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman's head
Leaned against her shoulder.
Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,

Weav-weav-weaving

The repetition mimics both the physical motion of weaving and the harp's musical rhythm. Millay is making the language perform the action—sound becomes technique.

Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things.
Many bright threads,
From where I couldn't see,
Were running through the harp-strings
Rapidly,
And gold threads whistling
Through my mother's hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.
She wove a child's jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.
She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
"She's made it for a king's son,"

King's son

The clothes are royal quality—far beyond what she could afford. But also: he IS a king's son in the sense that matters. She's weaving him an identity, not just warmth.

I said, "and not for me."
But I knew it was for me.
She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.
She wove a pair of mittens,
She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.
She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,

Thread never broke

But her life-thread does. The weaving magic is fatal—she's literally weaving her life force into clothes. The unbroken thread is her sacrifice working perfectly.

And the thread never broke.
And when I awoke,—
There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder
Looking nineteen

Looking nineteen

She's transformed, younger, in mysterious light. This is the first fully supernatural moment—we've left realism behind. The vision happens twice, bracketing the weaving scene.

And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings

Frozen dead

She dies of cold while weaving, hands still in the harp. The magical sacrifice is also just hypothermia—Millay keeps both readings active. The fairy tale is real poverty.

Frozen dead.
And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king's son,
Just my size.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Ballad Form and Class

Millay uses the ballad stanza (four-line units, alternating four and three beats) to tell a story of poverty, but she's doing something unusual with it. Traditional ballads tell folk tales; this one tells a story of economic desperation in modern America. The form itself was associated with lower-class oral tradition—perfect for a poem about a mother too poor to buy thread.

The refrains work like a calendar: "That was in the early fall," "That was in the late fall," "When the winter came." We're watching the season change while the situation gets worse. Each time marker shows the mother's increasing panic and the child's increasing nakedness. The repetition mimics how poverty grinds on, predictable and inescapable.

CONTEXT Millay won the Pulitzer Prize for this poem in 1923. She grew up poor in Maine after her father abandoned the family, raised by a mother who encouraged her writing despite their poverty. The harp-weaver is her own mother, Cora, who worked as a nurse to keep three daughters fed. The biographical details matter: Millay knew exactly what it felt like to be the child watching a mother perform impossible labor.

Notice how the poem code-switches between realistic detail and fairy tale language. We get specific poverty markers—"loaf-end of rye," "little skinny shoulder-blades," burning chairs for fuel. Then we get "a wind with a wolf's head" and magical weaving. Millay refuses to choose between social realism and folklore. The magic is real AND it's a metaphor for what poor mothers actually do—make something from nothing through impossible labor.

The Weaving Scene

The mother literally weaves clothing from harp music. Millay gives us the technical details: threads running through harp-strings, gold threads through her hands, the web growing, the pattern expanding. This isn't vague magic—it's described like actual textile work. The mother is playing the harp and weaving simultaneously, turning sound into fabric.

CONTEXT The image combines several myths: the Fates weaving life-threads, Philomela weaving her story into tapestry, Penelope weaving and unweaving. But Millay makes it specific to poverty—this mother weaves clothes, practical things, not destinies or stories. She weaves "a child's jacket" first, then "another one," then breeches, boots, a hat, mittens, a blouse. The list is almost comically domestic.

The repetition of "she wove" creates hypnotic rhythm—we're inside the work, feeling it accumulate. "She wove all night / In the still, cold house." The cold matters. She's freezing while she works. The magic doesn't protect her from the cold; it just lets her finish the work before she dies.

The clothes are "for a king's son"—regal, red cloaks, piled "toppling to the skies." The hyperbole is the point. The mother doesn't weave just enough; she weaves abundance, royalty, everything she couldn't give him in life. The pile of clothes is absurd, excessive, a mother's fantasy of provision. And they're "just my size"—perfectly fitted, made exactly for him. The magic is love knowing exactly what's needed.