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 MY WEB OF LIFE. 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 M Y W E B OF LIFE 
 A FRAGMENT.
 
 MY WEB OF LIFT: 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle." 
 
 —Job vii. 5. 
 
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 M Y WEB OF LI F E 
 
 ./ FRAGMENT, 
 
 AST evening — sitting in my room alone. 
 
 And worn and weary with a hard day's toil, 
 My thoughts in lazy, dreamy idleness, 
 Chasing each other like Phantoms in a mist ; 
 While memory linked the sweet and bitter 
 Of the past and present, 
 
 And shapes and forms of bygone joys and sorrows 
 Came trooping to my mind — 
 Thus I in fancy weaved 
 
 S3 #6.
 
 6 MY WEB OF LIFE : 
 
 Jftg (atcb of pfe. 
 
 A tiny fragile thread of light-hued silk 
 Was slowly wound from off the parent coil, 
 And, after plattings under skilful hands, 
 Wav-formed into a warp of human life ; 
 Thereafter, gently, and by slow degrees, 
 Between the fibres of the fragile web, 
 The pulsing shuttle passed the threads of woof 
 To brace and strengthen up the work begun ; 
 Then gradually there moulded into shape 
 A fair young life. 
 
 ( )ne early spring, when fully twenty years 
 
 Had rolled their ceaseless course throughout the 
 
 loom, 
 1 saw arise, and glance across my web,
 
 .; FRAGMENT. 
 
 7 
 
 A golden thread of dazzling glorious sheen 
 
 Which sent the pulses of my beating heart 
 
 l!ack to their source. Transfixed I gazed, 
 
 And wondered whence and why my path it crossed. 
 
 Anon its course drew nearer to my side, 
 
 And hovered round me as I watched its form, 
 
 Until in unison our hearts were blended, 
 
 In thought and every human feeling 
 
 One we became, and each one's future life 
 
 Was linked and interwoven with the other's. 
 
 A long probation of four years was ours, 
 While side by side we plied our endless task, 
 And ev'ry hour and ev'ry day and year 
 Our threads of life we wove in harmony. 
 I could, but (Lire not, trace, or e'en recall, 
 The joy and gladness of those happy hours, 
 When two young loving hearts were all in all— 
 The path we trod a garden strewed with flowers.
 
 y MY WEB OF LIFE : 
 
 Could I but paint her as she stood before me 
 Like a pure being far above this earth, 
 And casting from her eyes a deep spell o'er me, 
 Remaining still — she seemed of heavenly birth, 
 Around her shedding love and joy and mirth. 
 
 All through this time, as I have said before. 
 Our threads of life were wove in harmony, 
 Till, on a glorious bright spring April day, 
 ( )ur fates were fixed, and our two loving lives 
 Were platted into one. 
 
 My vision fails, my heart and pulses beat, 
 
 As I remember all that time of joy, 
 
 When life's spring roses grew amongst our feet, 
 
 And life itself seemed free from all alloy; 
 
 When hand in hand, and heart in heart, we led 
 
 Each other lovingly, the live long day, 
 
 And in our inmost souls to God we pled
 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 To guide us — guard us on our unknown way. 
 
 A year its happy course had well nigh rolled, 
 When one dear precious silver thread appears — 
 An offshoot from the platted silk and gold — 
 To cheer my life in many after years. 
 
 My little budding beauteous treasure, 
 
 In every act and look a charm ; 
 
 None can see thee without pleasure, 
 
 Nature made thy heart so warm : 
 
 In all thou dost — to me thy greatest beauty 
 
 Each day shines forth — self-sacrifice to duty. 
 
 And year by year the silver threads shot out 
 Their tendril cords, and grew and worked apace, 
 And nimble fingers plied with constant care 
 To strengthen life and keep the mem'ry green ; 
 And year by year the hearts were closely knit,
 
 10 MY WEB OF LIFE: 
 
 And all around the firmly-platted cord 
 
 Arose a little world of fairy threads, 
 
 Which grew in brightness and in strength and beauty. 
 
 What was the colder outer world to us? 
 
 We had our kingdom in each other's hearts — ■ 
 
 Although sometimes the worries and the sores 
 
 Of little cares would bring a passing cloud 
 
 O'er all our brightness, make the pulses throb, 
 
 And raise a trembling fear upon our hearts 
 
 Of coming sorrow — but one look within 
 
 The sacred circle of our hearth and home, 
 
 And all dread vanished, as we calmly thought 
 
 How good and generous our great God is ; 
 
 And He will surely guide us on our way, 
 
 And keep us safe. In this security 
 
 We lulled our fears to peace. 
 
 For more than twenty years our spirits lived 
 In constant sweet communion,
 
 A FRAGMENT. ji 
 
 Supporting, with that love which knows no self, 
 
 Each other's footsteps, on our worldly way; 
 
 And day by day, in love's sweet sympathy, 
 
 Smoothing the rugged places in our path ; 
 
 And round about us there had quickly grown 
 
 A coronet of thirteen silver threads, 
 
 All bright and shining — fair to look upon ; 
 
 And in our vanity we felt and said 
 
 Each unto each — Xo harm shall come to us : 
 
 We'll watch our silver threads, and see them grow 
 
 In strength and beauty, whilst we sit and love. 
 
 I cannot picture what those happy years 
 Brought to my heart, in all their varied cares ; 
 The joys — the doubts — the longing hopes and 
 
 fears, 
 Which he who passes through life's struggle shares. 
 We often realized the fabled coil 
 Penelope in olden times intended,
 
 I2 -VY WEB OF LIFE: 
 
 \Vlien coming morn undid the work and toil 
 
 The past day's hours had left complete and ended. 
 
 When all was sunshine in our life and home, 
 And every thread seemed strong and swiftly plied, 
 When daily pictures grew beneath our hands, 
 And lovely shapes and forms were on the canvas seen, 
 One night a sudden cry arose ! ! 
 
 "& Wxte&b hau §rtta^tb" 
 
 And all the skill of earnest, loving workers, 
 With eager, pleading, wistful, watching eyes, 
 And nimble fingers searching in the dark, 
 Could not again unite the fractured cord. 
 
 Ah ! me, the saddened hearts with which we 
 
 worked, 
 Let fall the tears that blurred the pictures now.
 
 A FRAGMENT. 13 
 
 Loved one ! in every shape and form he lurked — 
 In curly hair, and broad, expansive brow — 
 Earth's treasure gone : to Thy decree we bow. 
 
 No sooner had the dear link from our chain been 
 
 cut, 
 The thread left, snapped and broken, in the web, 
 Than she, who'd been the essence of my life, 
 Began to fade, and lose the shining lustre of the 
 
 gold. 
 And day by day the fingers, eft so nimble, slower 
 
 came ; 
 And foot so active once, became weak-clogged; 
 And eye so bright, lost all its wonted fire; 
 And heart and strength seemed blighted, withering up. 
 Ah, me ! 'tis sad to see life's gushing stream, 
 Which we have known in all its brightness, 
 Dry up and shrink, and leave its worn-out banks, 
 And roll its waters to the eternal sea.
 
 I4 MY WEB OF LIFE. 
 
 Oh, how I watched the slow, but sure, decay 
 Of strength and health, and saw the life go out ; 
 And marked the wasting look which, day by 
 
 day, 
 Left in our hearts not even room for doubt. 
 And still my heart and quivering pulses throb, 
 When memory calls the vision to my mind, 
 Of all that time of agony and pain — 
 To sit and know the fast sure ebbing tide, 
 Would leave me stranded on the lonely shore ; 
 At last in agony my heart cried out 
 In all its anguish — Gone for evermore ! 
 
 How my heart burns with all its olden fire, 
 When I recall the glorious times now gone ! 
 L'ut ah ! how soon I feel its glows expire, 
 When memory whispers thou art now alone. 
 For weeks it seemed to my o'er charged mind 
 As if e'en time had ceased to roll its course,
 
 A FRAGMJSNT. 
 
 I felt so stunned and wretched. 
 
 At last — Oh, God ! — the wakening came 
 
 In all its bitterness; and my weary web of life 
 
 I knew at last that I must weave alone. 
 
 For three sad years we worked our weary way, 
 Till time had healed the canker of the wound, 
 And though the vacant spaces in our homely life 
 Still kept alive the chasms in our hearts, 
 Custom had ta'en the darkness from our eyes, 
 And once again some fairy pictures grew 
 Beneath our fingers, and the sombre hue 
 Of three years' mourning 
 Gave place to brighter colours, 
 Which one by one crept through the woof. 
 
 And one fair thread from out our family skein 
 Had stepped aside, 
 
 i5
 
 1 6 MY WEB OF LIFE. 
 
 And platted with another thread 
 
 Of her own choosing. 
 
 It could not last. Another glorious thread 
 Who'd shed, for thirteen summers, at our loom 
 A light around him, like the sun at noon, 
 Was paled and withered, and, in spite of all 
 That human skill could do, to ply the woof, 
 The silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was 
 broken. 
 
 A great abyss, a dark and dreary chasm, 
 Seems still to lie between the then and naif ; 
 And, as I see the sun light on the hills 
 Of what in olden days was once my Home, 
 My heart sinks, groaning in its dark despair. 
 Heavenly Father, God of mercy — love, 
 Teach me to raise my heart to Thee— above,
 
 ./ FRAGMENT. 17 
 
 And with my latest qmVring words to say — 
 May all I love on earth "walk in God's way." 
 
 How often in my dreams the air seems filled 
 
 With visions of the old and happy time, 
 
 And day and night I fancy that 1 hear 
 
 Songs set in cadence with the thoughts they bring. 
 
 In one of these my day-light waking moods 
 
 I fancied that I heard a wailing voice 
 
 Pour forth its plaint in 
 
 1 
 
 Crchocs of the Past. 
 
 The faintest, softest whisper, 
 Changes atoms in their place, 
 And every word that's uttered, 
 Is photographed in space ;
 
 1 8 -U} r IVEB OF LIFE: 
 
 And through all nature's soundings, 
 As long as time shall last, 
 Our ears are ever ringing 
 With the echoes of the past. 
 
 n. 
 
 The ghosts of long-hushed voices 
 
 Are whispering in the air, 
 
 And songs and laughs are mixing 
 
 With the waitings of despair ; 
 
 And tones which long have ceased to sound 
 
 On earth, are in the blast, 
 
 With their sad and solemn warnings, 
 
 Like the echoes of the past. 
 
 in. 
 
 There are wafted in the morning 
 The sounds of early years,
 
 A FRAGMENT. [9 
 
 There are wafted in the evening 
 
 The sounds of long-shed tears; 
 And every day and every hour 
 A shadow's o'er us cast, 
 Bearing in its misty folds 
 The echoes of the past. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then let us watch our every word- 
 Put a bridle on our tongue; 
 Refrain from harsh expressions, 
 Whether old or young : 
 For to all a time is coming— 
 To some of us how fast — 
 When our beating hearts and lives will be 
 But echoes of the past. 
 
 Joy cometh with the morning, we are told.
 
 20 MY WEB OF LIFE: 
 
 Ah, would that so my long dark night might end, 
 My heart again feel brightness as of old ! 
 I cry in all my anguish — Father, Friend, 
 Eternal Saviour, balm to this heart send ! 
 
 By day and night my tears have been my meat, 
 When I remember all the things now gone ; 
 My constant cry is — could I plant my feet 
 Upon that rock which Thou hast made thine own .' 
 
 Why art thou then cast down my doubting soul ? 
 Why is my heart disquieted within ? 
 Oh, could I truly feel that He would roll 
 From off my head its heavy load of sin ! 
 
 Hope thou in God ; how long, oh God, how long 
 Shall I these hands in trembling anguish raise? 
 When in the night shall be with me Thy song? 
 When shall my heart in humble faith Thee praise?
 
 ./ FRAGMENT. 21 
 
 Deep calleth unto deep; and all Thy waves 
 And water-spouts seem rushing o'er my heart : 
 Clings cries nn soul, unto that Rock which saves— 
 Trust and His hand shall never from thee part. 
 
 (), golden words ! I feel the soothing balm 
 They pour into my heart, and still its trembling beat. 
 Is this, O Lord my God, the blessed calm 
 Which Thou hast promised from Thy mercy seat 
 To all who come to Thee, and lay their burden at 
 Thy feet? 
 
 My soul is truly panting after Thee, 
 
 Is thirsting for the waters of Thy spring; 
 
 In mercy, lather, stretch Thy hand and bring 
 
 My longing heart from out this troubled sea. 
 
 Still trust in Cod-- let that now be the song 
 Which day and night from this crushed heart shall rise,
 
 22 MY WEB OF LIFE: A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Until I join that white-washed glorious throng 
 Which stands around Thy throne in Paradise. 
 
 Gone art thou, too, my second silver thread; 
 Radiant and beaming as a brilliant star. 
 Around thy path may heaven its blessings shed, 
 Circling thy home, and may He keep afar 
 Earth's heavier troubles from thy much loved head. 
 
 Now in the Web, as each year weaves its round, 
 Three vanished threads are missing from its woof. 
 
 J. W. G. 
 
 November, 1S76. 
 
 GLASGOW: I'KINTKI) AT TUB UNlVlittSU'Y 1KKSS.
 
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