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Show THE OLD STONE BASIN In the heart of the busy city In the scorching noon-time heat, A sound of bubbling water Falls on the din of the street, It falls in a grey stone basin, And over the cool wet brink The heads of thirsty horses Each moment are stretched to drink And passing between the crowding heads As the horses come and go, "The Gift of Three Little Sisters" Is read on the stone below. Ah, beasts are not taught letters, They know no alphabet; And never a horse in all the years Has read the words, sad yet. I think that each toil-worn creature Who stops to drink by the way, His thanks in his own dumb fashion, To the sisters small must pay Years have gone by since busy hands Wrought at the basin's stones; Two kindly little sisters Are all to women grown. I do not know their home or faces Or the name they bear to men, But the sweetness of their gracious deed Is just as fresh as then. And all life long, and after life, They must the happier be, For the "cup of water" given by them When they were children three. -Susan Coolidge, in St Nicholas |
