A Weaver sat before his loom,
The shuttle flinging fast,
And to his web a thread of doom
Was added at each cast.
His warp had been by angels spun;
Bright was his weft and new,
Unbraided from life’s morning sun,
Gemmed with life’s morning dew.
And fresh-lipped, beautiful young flowers
In tissue rich were spread,
While the weaver told the joy-sped hours
By his pulse’s bounding tread.
But o’er his brow a shadow crept,
And on the fabric lay;
The shuttle faltered as it swept
Along its darkened way.
Gray was the faded thread it bore,
Dimmed by the touch of thought;
And tear-like stains were sprinkled o’er
The richest broideries wrought.
Still kept the weaver weaving on,
Though he wove a texture gray,
Its tissued brilliance all had gone,
The gold threads cankered lay.
And still, with gathering mildew, grew
Yet duller every thread,
And mingled some of coal-black hue,
And some of bloody red.
For things most strange were woven in,
Corroding griefs and fears,-
And broken was the web and thin,
And it dripped with briny tears.
He longed to fling his toil aside,
But knew ‘t would be a sin;
So the ceaseless shuttle still he plied,
Those life-cords weaving in.
And as he wove, and wept, and wove,
Fair tempters, stealing nigh,
With glozing words, to win him strove,
But he turned away his eye;
He turned his aching eye to heaven,
And wearily wove on,
Till life’s last faltering cast was given,
The fabric strange was done.
He flung it round his shoulders bowed,
And o’er his grizzled head,
And gathering close his trailing shroud
Lay down among the dead.
And next I marked his robe’s wide folds
As they swept the fields of air,
Bright as the arc the sunlight moulds,
As angel pinions fair.
And there inwrought was each bright flower,
As when at first it sprung;
The fairy work of morning’s hour
In morning freshness hung.
And where a tear had left its stain
A snow-white lily lay.
And the leaden tracery of pain
Linked many a jewel’s ray.
Wherever Grief’s meek breath had swept
There dwelt a rich perfume,
And bathed in silvery moonlight slept
The sable work of gloom.
And then I prayed :-the strange web done.
To my frail fingers given,
Be Sorrow’s stain the deepest one
To mar my robe in heaven.
(Emily Chubbuck Judson)
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