Man’s life is laid in the loom of time
To a pattern he does not see
While the weavers and the shuttles fly
Till the dawn of eternitySome shuttles are filled with silver threads
And some with threads of gold
While often but the darker threads
Are all that they may hold.But the weaver watches with
Skilful eye
Each shuttle fly to and fro
And sees the pattern so deftly wrought
As the loom moves sure and slowGod surely planned the pattern
Each thread, the dark and fair
Is chosen by his masters skill
And placed in the web with care.God only knows it’s beauty
And guides the shuttles which hold
The threads so unattractive
As well as the threads of goldNot till each loom is silent
Anonymous
And the shuttle cease to fly
Shall God reveal the pattern
And explain the reason why
The dark threads were as needful
In the weavers skilful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
For the pattern which he planned.
Tag: Poetry
Fellowship
When a feller hasn’t got a cent
And is feelin’ kind of blue,
And the clouds hang thick and dark
And won’t let the sunshine thro’,
It’s a great thing, oh my brethren,
For a feller just to lay
His hand upon your shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way.It makes a man feel queerish,
It makes the tear-drops start.
And you kind o’ feel a flutter
In the region of your heart.
You can’t look up and meet his eye,
You don’t know what to say
When a hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way.Oh this world’s a curious compound
Anonymous
With its honey and its gall;
Its cares and bitter crosses,
But a good world after all.
And a good God must have made it,
Leastwise that is what I say,
When a hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort o’ way.
A Better Resurrection
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm’d with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.My life is like a broken bowl,
Christina Rossetti
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
History Of The Enlightenment
Faith was a dream technology
Les Murray
but one we couldn’t master, or do cold
and it soon became equivocal again.
Mountains got moved by money or the lash
and we started to insult faith
as if it might be piqued and after all
kick in that sacred phase-shift
where cancers vanish, and the
golden brown in their antique clothes
enlarge from photograph size, walking
toward us, all welcoming, with secrets
the day it is Dreamtime in our streets.
Christmas Eve
Christmas has a darkness
Brighter than the blazing noon,
Christmas has a chillness
Warmer than the heat of June,
Christmas has a beauty
Lovelier than the world can show:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.Earth, strike up your music,
Christina Rossetti
Birds that sing and bells that ring;
Heaven has answering music
For all angels soon to sing:
Earth, put on your whitest
Bridal robe of spotless snow:
For Christmas bringeth Jesus,
Brought for us so low.
I started Early – Took my Dog
I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – opon the Sands –But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice – too –And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion’s Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –Until We met the Solid Town –
Emily Dickinson
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –
The Meaning of Existence
Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.Even this fool of a body
Les Murray
lives it in part, and would
have full dignity within it
but for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.
Predawn in Health
The stars are filtering through a tree
outside in the moon’s silent era.Reality is moving layer over layer
like crystal spheres now called laws.The future is right behind your head;
just over all horizons is the past.The soul sits looking at its offer.
Les Murray
Glee—the Great Storm Is Over
GLEE! the great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls,—
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, “But the forty?
Did they come back no more?”Then a silence suffuses the story,
Emily Dickinson
And a softness the teller’s eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.
A Pause for Thought
A Pause for Thought
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
Christina Rossetti
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o’er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?—
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
