 | Early and late poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary |  |
HOPE.
When all my fields are frozen,
When all my orchards nakèd stand,
I hear a sound that is like the sound
Of a sower, sowing the land.
And all at once the limbs of leaves,
So darkly-dim before,
Shine round me like a thresher's sheaves
When he stands in his threshing-floor.
When all my orchards nakèd stand,
I hear a sound that is like the sound
Of a sower, sowing the land.
And all at once the limbs of leaves,
So darkly-dim before,
Shine round me like a thresher's sheaves
When he stands in his threshing-floor.
127
Awake from troubled slumber,
In the middle watch o' the night,
I see a hand that is like the hand
Of a painter, painting the light.
And all at once, with the shadows
Are threads of silver spun,
And all my room is like the bloom
Of a garden in the sun.
In the middle watch o' the night,
I see a hand that is like the hand
Of a painter, painting the light.
And all at once, with the shadows
Are threads of silver spun,
And all my room is like the bloom
Of a garden in the sun.
When pleasures please no longer,
When the charm of love is lost,
When my dearest hopes before me
Like chaff in the winds are tost;
My empty heart forgets its lack,
And I hear a voice that sings
Like the mother-bird when she calleth back
Her little ones to her wings.
When the charm of love is lost,
When my dearest hopes before me
Like chaff in the winds are tost;
My empty heart forgets its lack,
And I hear a voice that sings
Like the mother-bird when she calleth back
Her little ones to her wings.
When the sea of life is darkest,
When the billows gap with graves,
I hear a step that is like a step
That is treading on the waves;
And all at once the clouds are rent,
And I with my spirit see
That time is but an incident
Of the great eternity.
When the billows gap with graves,
I hear a step that is like a step
That is treading on the waves;
And all at once the clouds are rent,
And I with my spirit see
That time is but an incident
Of the great eternity.
| Early and late poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary | |