| |
| ON hill and glade, the flowers fade, | |
| The bleaching grass is all a-cold; | |
| The leaves all frayed, in dust are laid, | |
| The shrewd and churlish winds grow bold. | |
| |
| Like jealous thieves, they tear the leaves | 5 |
| That shiver, clinging to the tree, | |
| The Eden leaves—the heart, it grieves, | |
| The chilly air’s a prophecy. | |
| |
| The signs of loss and wreckage float; | |
| A tear is trembling in the sky; | 10 |
| The bird, a lump is in her throat, | |
| For song and summer that must die. | |
| |
| Granny, these Ellul penance days, | |
| Days, purgatorial, sad and sere, | |
| Like pilgrim plods her dolorous ways | 15 |
| To burial grounds to drop her tear. | |
| |
| With prophesying heart and look, | |
| The yarn in use for shrouds she buys, | |
| And lays it in her prayer-book, | |
| And wipes, and wipes again her eyes. | 20 |
| |
| And hobbling hies her to the graves; | |
| Her heart, a nest of gnawing fears; | |
| And there unwinds, unwinds and laves | |
| The thread with tears—they weep, her years. | |
| |
| She sobs and sighs some sacred word, | 25 |
| With pain as if the grave did yawn | |
| Within her heart; as if she heard | |
| The whirr of worms in coffins spawn. | |
| |
| She bows her head, and lays the thread, | |
| And metes and measures every mound; | 30 |
| Each peaceful dwelling of the dead, | |
| Each holy home in silence bound. | |
| |
| Her tears, they well, her tears, they roll, | |
| As on the grave she lays the line; | |
| And something sobs within her soul, | 35 |
| “You, too, one day will have this shrine. | |
| |
| “Your sacred mound, some hands will mete; | |
| Who knows if not your fingers now | |
| Have measured here your life’s retreat, | |
| The grave which time for you will plow?” | 40 |
| |
| She wipes a tear, winds up again | |
| The hallowed, dusty tear-touched thread, | |
| She takes it home, and weaves amain | |
| A wick by which the Torah’s read. | |
| |
| A wick, a lamp for Judah’s camp, | 45 |
| That keeps the Torah’s law of life— | |
| And then she sighs—“No more they tramp | |
| The dead, the dead are free from strife. | |
| |
| “O Lord, of love and living years, | |
| We lit Thy Torah’s lamp so long, | 50 |
| With threads of graves, with threads of tears, | |
| When will we weave it threads of song?” | |
| |
