Poems (Kennedy)/Fragments

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

FRAGMENTS

A DESERT place, and over it
 The sunset shadows trailing slow,
And all that weary multitude—
 Foregathered from the plain below—
 Caught in the radiant after-glow.

He raised his eyes, the Nazarene
 Who by a miracle had fed
The thousands in the wilderness,
 And: "Gather up the broken bread,
 The fragments of the feast," He said.

And forth they fared, his chosen ones,
 Who late had served the famished host,
And gleaned, and came again weighed down
 With fragments that aside were tossed;
 And not a crumbled crust was lost.

*******

Down all the ages men have read
 The frugal lesson that He taught;
And yet—if it was only crumbs He meant—
 The wasted bits the baskets caught—
 The miracle were but half wrought.

For other fragments we must seek
 While in life's wilderness we bide;
Yea, broken faiths we loved and lost,
 And shattered creeds our sins denied,
 And shards of hope o'er which we cried!

From out the chaos of some grief
 That wrecked our idols as it passed,
The fragments must be gathered up
 And in a fairer molding cast,
 And given back to God at last.