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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! | |
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| To the fibre of rain on a window-pane | 5 |
| The talkative stitches said: | |
| I hold together with the weight of a feather | |
| The heaviest shroud! | |
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II My needle says: Don’t be young, | |
| Holding visions in your eyes, | 10 |
| 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. | |
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| My needle says: What is youth | 15 |
| 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! | 20 |
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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. | 25 |
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| 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. | 30 |
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