Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OUR PATTERN, by PHOEBE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OUR PATTERN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A weaver sat one day at his loom
Last Line: "at our pattern up above!"
Subject(s): Religion; Weaving & Weavers; Theology


A WEAVER sat one day at his loom,
Among the colors bright,
With the pattern for his copying
Hung fair and plain in sight.

But the weaver's thoughts were wandering
Away on a distant track,
As he threw the shuttle in his hand
Wearily forward and back.

And he turned his dim eyes to the ground,
And tears fell on the woof,
For his thoughts, alas! were not with his home,
Nor the wife beneath its roof;

When her voice recalled him suddenly
To himself, as she sadly said:
"Ah! woe is me! for your work is spoiled,
And what will we do for bread?"

And then the weaver looked, and saw
His work must be undone;
For the threads were wrong, and the colors dimmed,
Where the bitter tears had run.

"Alack, alack!" said the weaver,
"And this had all been right
If I had not looked at my work, but kept
The pattern in my sight!"

Ah! sad it was for the weaver,
And sad for his luckless wife:
And sad will it be for us, if we say,
At the end of our task of life:

"The colors that we had to weave
Were bright in our early years:
But we wove the tissue wrong, and stained
The woof with bitter tears.

"We wove a web of doubt and fear --
Not faith, and hope, and love --
Because we looked at our work, and not
At our Pattern up above!"





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