Just Folks

The Weaver

          The patter of rain on the roof,
            The glint of the sun on the rose;
          Of life, these the warp and the woof,
            The weaving that everyone knows.
          Now grief with its consequent tear,
            Now joy with its luminous smile;
          The days are the threads of the year—
            Is what I am weaving worth while?

          What pattern have I on my loom?
            Shall my bit of tapestry please?
          Am I working with gray threads of gloom?
            Is there faith in the figures I seize?
          When my fingers are lifeless and cold,
            And the threads I no longer can weave
          Shall there be there for men to behold
            One sign of the things I believe?

          God sends me the gray days and rare,
            The threads from his bountiful skein,
          And many, as sunshine, are fair.
            And some are as dark as the rain.
          And I think as I toil to express
            My life through the days slipping by,
          Shall my tapestry prove a success?
            What sort of a weaver am I?

          Am I making the most of the red
            And the bright strands of luminous gold?
          Or blotting them out with the thread
            By which all men's failure is told?
          Am I picturing life as despair,
            As a thing men shall shudder to see,
          Or weaving a bit that is fair
            That shall stand as the record of me?