A Weaver

LILLIAN BARKER DURKEE

From day's early dawning till night's dusky fingers
Let down o'er a weary world curtains of gloom,
A weaver, designing his life's varied pattern,
Was toiling and weaving at time's heavy loom;
His shuttle was filled with the gay, brilliant colors
Of youth's luring passions, ambitions, and love;
And into a rainbow-hued fabric he wove them,
With never a shade from the gray clouds above.

One day when the years on the loom had grown longer,
The threads became tangled, and lost their bright hue;
Undaunted he struggled in pain and in sorrow,
To pick out the knots, start the pattern anew.
The heavy, rough threads tore his hands as he fumbled
To set them aright, though heartsick with despair;
Then came a loved friend with a book which he promised
Untangles life's threads with the rules written there.

Then stole through his heart a great sweet, peaceful silence,
As Love's wondrous message he eagerly read;
When dawned on his vision the light of true being,
His hands sought again for the grim, tangled thread.
He smoothed out the tangles with confident fingers;
The shuttle he wound with two pure golden strands,—
Divine truth and love of eternity's spinning,—Then turned to his labor with glad, willing hands.

Once more to and fro in the loom sped his shuttle,
In tune with the joy-bells that rang in his heart,
And broidered the gray and the dusk of past anguish
With sunshine of service, where new patterns start.
Each day at his loom sits the glad, busy weaver,
His Maker's reflection to both age and youth;
Bright visions of glory his skilled fingers weaving
With God's twofold thread of divine love and truth.

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