THE LOOM OF LIFE.




ALL day, all night, I can hear the jar 

Of the loom of life, and near and far 

It thrills with its deep and muffled sound, 

As the tireless wheels go always round.

Busily, ceaselessly goes the loom 

In the light of day and the midnight's gloom, 

The wheels are turning early and late, 

And the woof is wound in the warp of fate.

Click, clack! There's a thread of love wove in; 

Click, clack! Another of wrong and sin; 

What a checkered thing this life will be 

When we see it unrolled in eternity!

Time, with a face like mystery, 

And hands as busy as hands can be, 

Sits at the loom with its arms outspread, 

To catch in its meshes each glancing thread.

When shall this wonderful web be done? 

"In twenty years? Perhaps in one; 

Or tomorrow. Who knoweth! Not you or I. 

But the wheels turn on and the shuttles fly.

Are we spinners of woof for this life-web, say? 

Do we furnish the weaver a thread each day? 

It were better then, O my friend, to spin 

A beautiful thread than a thread of sin.

Ah, sad-eyed spinner, the years are slow; 

But each one is nearer the end, I know; 

And some day the last thread will be woven in, 

God grant it be love instead of sin.




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