Hazel Hall

From “Repetitions”

I

A FIBRE of rain on a window-pane

Talked to a stitching thread:

In the heaviest weather I hold together

The weight of a cloud!

To the fibre of rain on a window-pane

The talkative stitches said:

I hold together with the weight of a feather

The heaviest shroud!

My needle says: Don’t be young,

Holding visions in your eyes,

Tasting laughter on your tongue!—

Be very old and very wise,

And sew a good seam up and down

In white cloth, red cloth, blue and brown.

My needle says: What is youth

But eyes drunken with the sun,

Seeing farther than the truth;

Lips that call, hands that shun

The many seams they have to do

In white cloth, red cloth, brown and blue!

III

One by one, one by one,

Stitches of the hours run

Through the fine seams of the day;

Till like a garment it is done

And laid away.

One by one the days go by,

And suns climb up and down the sky;

One by one their seams are run—

As Time’s untiring fingers ply

And life is done.