Ziphen Central – Seeking Wisdom and Sublimity
From Ailenroc’s Book, by Cornelia Alexander
One morn when the sun peeped over the hills,
Where tinkled the music of flowing rills,
And the dew lay thick on leaf and flower,
And the soft breeze shook an odorous shower
From the trees, and the world was all abloom—
A weaver sat at his busy loom.
He saw the sky so pure and blue,
And the pale spring flowers wet with dew.
He heard, as he wove, the hum of bees;
He caught the scent of blossoming trees,
The babble of water borne on the air,
With song of bird so high and clear;
The brightness of every beautiful thing
He caught as he worked, and wove them in.
The sun grew warmer, the day wore on;
The weaver beguiled the time with song.
He sung of the deeds of heroic men
Who died for freedom in bog or fen,
And his arm grew strong; he smote the beam
With strength unknown to his boyish dream;
And into the web he wove his pride,
His hopes, and his joys, so multiplied
Till under his hand they burned and blazed,
And the weaver looked on all amazed.
He wove in the richest, gaudiest dyes—
Scarlet like the birds of paradise;
Blue, deep blue, like the vaulted sky;
Gold like the sunbeams glinting by;
Green like the leaves of the swaying trees;
But he lost the sound of the gentle breeze.
Better he liked the roaring blast,
Which bowed the forest as on it passed.
He heeded no longer the babble of brooks
Hid in the coolness of shady nooks.
The roar of the waterfall, music made—
He loved the noonday, and not the shade.
The day wore on. The weaver still
Struck the beam with force of arm and will;
But he wearied now of the flaming dyes,
Gold and purple and blue of the skies,
And scarlet like birds of paradise.
Now with the gold of the wheaten sheaf
He mingled the brown of the russet leaf;
And, withered and pallid among the green,
Full many a faded flower was seen;
And many a snarl and many a knot,
And many a rent and unsightly spot.
He heart the whip-poor-will’s plaintive cry,
The raven’s croak, and the lone dove’s sigh;
And strangely, with grief and sadness blent,
Came a joy that the day was almost spent.
The day was done. The loom was still;
The arm no longer obeyed the will.
From the nerveless hands the shuttle dropped;
The tired feet the treadles stopped;
And before the Master’s eyes unrolled,
Lay the long day’s work heaped fold on fold.