AFTER THE GLEANERS
The gleaners had left all the field bone bare ; Only the headland grasses, here and there, Impaled that filmy wool a spider weaves When colours fade and autumn chills the air. And I had longed to help bring home the sheaves.
No rag remained. The cold began to gnaw My too-material finger-tips ; they tore The gossamer as they touched it. Every hand But mine had raked the muck for moonbeam straw.
Why had I buried my heart in such a land?
Yet naked, sad and gaunt, the field had grown To new dimensions. Dared I stumble on, One yard perhaps, I might redeem with tears What some unselfish friend had faithfully sown A thousand years ago, a thousand years.
Then it was, then, I heard, but could not see, A brook that comforted the anxious lea ; Small, delicate filter of the prism of sound It sang alone, yet bade the world and me Be happier, because our peace was found.
LILIAN BOWES LYON.
Previous page
