While the poor sailor, day and night,
Lives in peril and affright.
Day and night must work and wake,
And of a plank his cradle make.
The Breton women, who spend hours at the spinning-wheel, as in all other countries, accompany the monotonous and musical drone with long chants, that hypnotize the sense of labor, which are often merely improvisations with as little sense and meaning as the lullabies for infants. But here is one into which the old spinner puts the thoughts of her willingness to make sacrifice of her all in order that her son might be educated as a priest, and her hopes of reward from his filial piety. The soothing and monotonous melody is necessarily lost in the translation.
THE SONG OF THE OLD SPINNER.
My wheel and my bonnet of straw
And my waist of white linen