SANDS OF GOLD
| Hope gave into my
trembling hands An hour-glass running golden sands, And Love's immortal joys and pains I measured by its glancing grains. But Evil Fortune swooped, alas! Remorseless on the magic glass, And shivered into idle dust The radiant record of my trust. Long I mated with Despair And craved for Death with ceaseless prayer; Till unto my sick-bed side There stole a Presence angel-eyed. "If thou wouldst heal thee of thy wound," Her voice to heavenly harps attuned Bespake me, "Let the sovran tide Within this glass thy future guide." Therewith she gave into my hands No hour-glass running golden sands, Only a horologe forlorn Set against a cross of thorn, And cold and stern the current seemed That through its clouded crystal gleamed. "Immortal one," I cried, "make plain This cure of my consuming pain. Open my eyes to understand, And sift the secrets of this sand, And measure by its joyless grains What yet of life to me remains." "The sand," she said, "that glimmers grey Within this glass, but yesterday Was dust at Dives' bolted door Shaken by God's suffering poor; Then by blasts of heaven upblown [159] Before the Judge upon His throne To swell the ever-gathering cloud Of witnesses against the proud— The dust of throats that knew no slaking, The dust of brows for ever aching— Dust unto dust with life's last breath Sighed into the urn of Death." With tears I took that cross of thorn, With tears that horologe forlorn. And all my moments by its dust I measure now with prayerful trust, And though my courage oft turns weak, Fresh comfort from that cross I seek; In wistful hope I yet may wake To find the thorn in blossom break, And from life's shivered glass behold My being's sands ebb forth in gold. |