Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/Sad words

by Manley Hopkins

SAD WORDS.

The little threads break one by one
That bound my heart to thine;
Love’s, like the silkworm’s, web is spun, —
As perilously fine.

It snaps beneath an angry word,
'Neath an unloving look;
Frowns are more trenchant than the sword,
Or Autumn's reaping-hook.

The maiden in the ceaseless mill
Watching the parting weft,
Stands ready to repair the ill
With fingers fast and deft.

But no fourth sister waits beside
Those fatal hands which sever
Life’s clue, which like Love’s thread untied,
Is join’d again, ah, never!

Berki.

 

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