Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/146

 140 THE CARPET OF LIFE.

THE CARPET OF LIFE.

A WONDROUS web it yonder lies Your life or mine. Its mysteries Of warp and woof, of light and gloom But ape the tricks of cunning loom, Where joys and sorrows, mingled, seem The woven shadows of a dream A carpet faded and grown thin By doors that let the wide world in.

See how the velvet leaves the thread Beneath the world s prosaic tread, Each careless footstep doing part To mark the currents on this chart Of Woman s kingdom, till they lie Marked out to every thoughtful eye, By tide and eddy surely left On fleecy pile and sturdy weft.

They lie around the window s light ; They coast the mirror s shimmer bright ; Swirl from the cradle, dimly seen, To senile arm-chair, and between Eddy about the firelight glow ; About the chair where, soft and low, The mother sings her hymn of rest Over the baby on her breast.

See yonder roses faded, where Went to and fro the steps of Care ;

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