SOMETIMES my needle stops with half-drawn thread ( Not often though, each moment's waste means bread, And missing stitches leave the little mouths unfed ). I look down on the dingy court below:
A tuft of grass is all it has to show,— A broken pump, where thirsty children go. Above, there shines a bit of sky, so small That it might be a passing blue-bird's wing.
One tree leans up against the high brick wall, And there the sparrows twitter of the spring, Until they waken in my heart a cry Of hunger, that no bread can satisfy.
Always before, when Maytime took her way Across the fields, I followed close. To-day I can but dream of all her bright array. My work drops down. Across the sill I lean,
And long with bitter longing, for unseen Rain-freshened paths, where budding woods grow green. The water trickles from the pump below Upon the stones. With eyes half shut, I hear
It falling in a pool where rushes grow, And feel a cooling presence drawing near. And now the sparrows chirp again. No, hark!— A singing as of some far meadow lark.
It is the same old miracle applied Unto myself, that on the mountain-side The few small loaves and fishes multiplied. Behold, how strange and sweet the mystery!
The birds, the broken pump, the gnarled tree, Have brought the fullness of the spring to me. For in the leaves that rustle by the wall All forests find a tongue. And so that grass
Can, with its struggling tuft of green, recall Wide, bloom-filled meadows where the cattle pass. How it can be, but dimly I divine. These crumbs, God given, make the whole loaf mine.
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