The Great and Little Weavers
The Great and Little Weavers
Original Text
Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 76-77. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
1The great and the little weavers,
2They neither rest nor sleep.
3They work in the height and the glory,
4They toil in the dark and the deep.
5The rainbow melts with the shower,
6The white-thorn falls in the gust,
7The cloud-rose dies into shadow,
8The earth-rose dies into dust.
9But they have not faded forever,
10They have not flowered in vain,
11For the great and the little weavers
12Are weaving under the rain.
13Recede the drums of the thunder
15And the bird-song piercing the sunset
16Faints with the sunset fires,
17But the trump of the storm shall fail not,
18Nor the flute-cry fail of the thrush,
19For the great and the little weavers
20Are weaving under the hush.
21The comet flares into darkness,
22The flame dissolves into death,
23The power of the star and the dew
24They glow and are gone like a breath,
25But ere the old wonder is done
26Is the new-old wonder begun,
27For the great and the little weavers
28Are weaving under the sun.
29The domes of an empire crumble,
30A child's hope dies in tears;
31Time rolls them away forgotten
32In the silt of the flooding years;
33The creed for which men died smiling
35The love that made lips immortal
36Drags by in a tattered hearse.
37But not till the search of the moon
38Sees the last white face uplift,
39And over the bones of the kindreds
40The bare sands dredge and drift,
41Shall Love forget to return
42And lift the unused latch,
43(In his eyes the look of the traveller,
44On his lips the foreign catch),
45Nor the mad song leave men cold,
46Nor the high dream summon in vain, --
47For the great and the little weavers
48Are weaving in heart and brain.
Notes
14] the Titan chorus: giant gods in Greek mythology overthrown by Zeus, a son of the Titan Cronus. Back to Line
34] beldame: "beautiful woman" (French), now old, ugly woman. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1902
Publication Notes
Munsey's Magazine (April 27, 1902).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme