Sands of Gold

Hope gave into my trembling hands
An hour-glass running golden sands,
And Love's immortal joys and pains
I measured by its glancing grains.
But Evil Fortune swooped, alas!
Remorseless on the magic glass,
And shivered into idle dust
The radiant record of my trust.

Long I mated with Despair
And craved for Death with ceaseless prayer;
Till unto my sick-bed side
There stole a Presence angel-eyed.

"If thou wouldst heal thee of thy wound,"
Her voice to heavenly harps attuned
Bespake me, "Let the sovran tide
Within this glass thy future guide."
Therewith she gave into my hands
No hour-glass running golden sands,
Only a horologe forlorn
Set against a cross of thorn,
And cold and stern the current seemed
That through its clouded crystal gleamed.

"Immortal one," I cried, "make plain
This cure of my consuming pain.
Open my eyes to understand,
And sift the secrets of this sand,
And measure by its joyless grains
What yet of life to me remains."

"The sand," she said, "that glimmers grey
Within this glass, but yesterday
Was dust at Dives' bolted door
Shaken by God's suffering poor;
Then by blasts of heaven upblown
Before the Judge upon His throne
To swell the ever-gathering cloud
Of witnesses against the proud--
The dust of throats that knew no slaking,
The dust of brows for ever aching--
Dust unto dust with life's last breath
Sighed into the urn of Death."

With tears I took that cross of thorn,
With tears that horologe forlorn.
And all my moments by its dust
I measure now with prayerful trust,
And though my courage oft turns weak,
Fresh comfort from that cross I seek;
In wistful hope I yet may wake
To find the thorn in blossom break,
And from life's shivered glass behold
My being's sands ebb forth in gold.