Old Adam

Old Adam breaking stones by the wayside,
Leans on his hammer for a moment's space,
Then turns away his head, as if to hide
The tears that trickle down his worn and wrinkled face.

I stop with him to hear him talk away,
But as I see the sorrow in his eye
I question Adam, Why so sad to-day?
And, wiping from his cheek the tears, the old man makes reply—

"Ah, William, I but view'd the past behind,
And from it rose with clear and open brow
One who was ever warm in heart and kind,
But he is in his grave, and I am lonely now.

"God knows I loved him overmuch, and He
Seeing some wiser end—to me unseen—
Reach'd out His hands from clouds, and took from me
The prop on which my age had fondly hoped to lean.

"Proud was I of my boy, and well I might,
For he, too, had the gift of thought and song;
And his I sang to make my labour light,
While he toil'd at his books, that mayhap did him wrong.

"I never sing them now, save in my heart,
Since my son died; for a drear sound of death
Rolls through their melody, as if a part
Of each, and tears come up and choke my failing breath.

"But aught that knew his touch we keep—his books
From which he drew at night a silent bliss,
Though useless now to me with their strange looks,
I lift them often up because they once were his:

"And as I sit, thus in my plodding brain
I fashion proudly forth what high career
Might have been his, and earnest noble gain
That would have kept me now from toiling feebly here.

"But like the fading light within the west
He sank, leaving this earth when he was gone
A sadder sight to me, and in my breast
A grief that seems like sin, because it still lives on.

"Then as I bow, my wife beside me stands;
'Adam,' she whispers, and her eyes are dim;
I look, and murmur, as I clasp her hands,
'Dear wife, our only son, and I was set on him.'

"But as she speaks, my grief begins to sink,
And all my being grows warm with other love,
Born of all hope and faith that still will link
Our highest aims below to one great source above.

"So as I toil from morn till weary night,
I teach myself to think that all is wise;
That what to me is dark shall be made light,
When I look back on earth with God's own pitying eyes."