This was our brother. Cain lies dead at last
Under the thorn,
In the desolate house of night.
His joy in the fleeing quarry is over and past.
He will sing no more to the morn,
And forgets how the shadows fall in the evening
light.
Look. In his hands he holds a faded wreath
Of flowering thorn.
He has plucked the spines from the stem.
Such Adam, our father, made when Eve drew
breath
At first, when love was born,
In the early days when God was good to them.
Only in dreams he can have learned the way
To weave the thorn,
For love he might not win.
Did he see in dreams a face he could not stay?
His hands are bruised and torn,
As forbidden paths he had sought to wander in.
We dare not close his eyes. He had God’s ban.
The pitying thorn
Drops petals as it fain would be his pall.
What does he know? Once on the hill he ran,
But now lies here forlorn.
Take hands and come away; the shadows fall.
(Ethel Clifford)
More Poetry from Ethel Clifford:
Ethel Clifford Poems based on Topics: Love, Dreams, Night, Faces, Light, God, Past, Brothers, Fathers- The Golden Bird (Ethel Clifford Poems)
- A Song Of The Moor (Ethel Clifford Poems)
- Broceliande (Ethel Clifford Poems)
- To M (Ethel Clifford Poems)
- Twilight (Ethel Clifford Poems)
- Cain's Song (Ethel Clifford Poems)