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Title: Rich And Poor
Author: Mrs. J. C. Yule [
More Titles by Yule]
Old Aleck, the weaver, sat in the nook
Of his chimney, reading an ancient book,
Old, and yellow, and sadly worn,
With covers faded, and soiled, and torn;--
And the tallow candle would flicker and flare
As the wind, which tumbled the old man's hair,
Swept drearily in through a broken pane,
Damp and chilling with sleet and rain.
Yet still, unheeding the changeful light,
Old Aleck read on and on that night;
Sometimes lifting his eyes, as he read,
To the cob-webb'd rafters overhead;--
But at length he laid the book away,
And knelt by his broken stool to pray;
And something, I fancied, the old man said
About "_treasures in Heaven_" of which he'd read.
A wealthy merchant over the way
Sat in his lamp-light's steady ray,
Where many a volume richly bound
And heavily gilded was lying round.
One, with glittering clasps was there,
Embossed, and pictured, and wondrous fair;
But the printed words were the very same
As those I read by the flickering flame
That gave me light as I stooped to look
Into the old man's tattered book,
And I knew by the page's spotless white,
No hand had opened it yet to the light.
"_Treasures In Heaven_"!--what, rich man, heir
To countless thousands, your thoughts are--where?
With these _he_ read of?--No; ah, no!--
Over the storm-vexed waters they go,
Where stout ships buffet the blast to-night,
With never a glimmering star in sight!
Day fretted the east with its stormy gold,
But the turbulent ocean raged and rolled,
And dashed on many a rock girt shore
The wrecks of ships that would sail no more,--
Lifting, at times, to the topmost wave
Ghastly faces no hand could save,--
And then, far down with his treasures vain,
Burying each in the depths again.
And the merchant looked from his mansion fair,
Over the ocean, with troubled air;
And thought of his treasures, in one short night
Whelmed in the deep by the tempest's might;--
Ah,--I knew by that pale brow's deepening gloom,
That he owned no treasure beyond the tomb.
Day fretted the east with its stormy gold,
Creeping slow through a casement old,
And stealing sadly with faint, cold ray
Into the hut where the old man lay.
White and still was the scattered hair,
And the hands were crossed with a reverent air;--
Calm and stirless the eyelids lay,
Pale as marble and cold as clay,
But the lips were tenderly wreathed, the while,
With the beautiful light of a saintly smile;
And I knew he had passed from that desolate room
To a fadeless treasure beyond the tomb.
[The end]
Mrs. J. C. Yule's poem: Rich And Poor
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