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?