Bruce and the Spider

by Bernard Barton

For Scotland's and for freedom's right

The Bruce his part has played;--

In five successive fields of fight

Been conquered and dismayed:

Once more against the English host

His band he led, and once more lost

The meed for which he fought;

And now from battle, faint and worn,

The homeless fugitive, forlorn,

A hut's lone shelter sought.

And cheerless was that resting-place

For him who claimed a throne;--

His canopy, devoid of grace,

The rude, rough beams alone;

The heather couch his only bed--

Yet well I ween had slumber fled

From couch of eider down!

Through darksome night till dawn of day,

Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay

Of Scotland and her crown.

The sun rose brightly, and its gleam

Fell on that hapless bed,

And tinged with light each shapeless beam

Which roofed the lowly shed;

When, looking up with wistful eye,

The Bruce beheld a spider try

His filmy thread to fling

From beam to beam of that rude cot--

And well the insect's toilsome lot

Taught Scotland's future king.

Six times the gossamery thread

The wary spider threw;--

In vain the filmy line was sped,

For powerless or untrue

Each aim appeared, and back recoiled

The patient insect, six times foiled,

And yet unconquered still;

And soon the Bruce, with eager eye,

Saw him prepare once more to try

His courage, strength, and skill.

One effort more, his seventh and last!--

The hero hailed the sign!--

And on the wished-for beam hung fast

That slender silken line!

Slight as it was, his spirit caught

The more than omen; for his thought

The lesson well could trace,

Which even "he who runs may read,"

That Perseverance gains its meed,

And Patience wins the race.

Somebody's Mother

The woman was old and ragged and gray
And bent with the chill of the Winter's day.

The street was wet with a recent snow
And the woman's feet were aged and slow.

She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng

Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.

Down the street with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of 'school let out,"

Came the boys like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.

Past the woman so old and gray
Hastened the children on their way.

Nor offered a helping hand to her-
So meek, so tired, afraid to stir

Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery street.

At last came one of the merry troop,
The gayest laddie of all the group;

He paused beside her and whispered low,
'I'll help you cross, if you wish to go."

Her aged hand on his strong young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,

He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong.

Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.

'She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow,

'And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,

'If ever she's poor and old and gray,
When her own dear boy is far away.'

And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said

Was, 'God be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son, and pride and joy!"

Mary Dow Brine

Evening Ebb

The ocean has not been so quiet for a long while; five night-

Herons

Fly shorelong voiceless in the hush of the air

Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings.

The sun has gone down, and the water has gone down

From the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises. The ebb

Whispers.

Great cloud-shadows float in the opal water.

Through rifts in the screen of the world pale gold gleams, and the

Evening

Star suddenly glides like a flying torch.

As if we had not been meant to see her; rehearsing behind

The screen of the world for another audience.

Robinson Jeffers

A Time to Talk

When a friend calls to me from the road
and slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
on all the hills I haven't hoed,
and shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
blade-end up and five feet tall,
and plod: I go up to the stone wall
for a friendly visit.

~Robert Frost

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
came, at the evening, cold and gray,

to a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
the sullen stream had no fears for him;
but he turned, when safe on the other side,
and built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"you are wasting strength with building here;
your journey will end with the ending day;
you never again must pass this way;
you have crossed the chasm, deep and wide -
why build you the bridge at the eventide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"there followeth after me today
a youth, whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm, that has been naught to me,
to that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
good friend, I am building the bridge for him."

Profile of the Night Heron

In the Brooklyn Botanic Garden the night
heron is on his branch of his tree, blue
moon curve of his body riding low
above the pond, leaves dipping into water
beneath him, green and loose as fingers.
On the far shore, the ibis is where
I left him last time, a black cypher
on his rock. These birds, they go to the right
place every day until they die.

There are people like that in the city,
with signature hats or empty attaché cases,
expressions of private absorption fending
off comment, who attach to physical
locations—a storefront, a stoop, a corner,
a bench—and appear there daily as if for a job.
They negotiate themselves into the pattern
of place, perhaps wiping windows, badly,
for a few bucks, clearing the stoop of take-out
menus every morning, collecting the trash
at the base of the WALK/DON'T WALK sign
and depositing it in the garbage can.

Even when surfaces change, when the Mom & Pop
store becomes a coffee bar, when the park
benches are replaced with dainty chairs and a pebble
border, they stay, noticing what will never change:
the heartprick of longitude and latitude
to home in on, the conviction

that life depends,

every day, on what outlasts you.

~Anne Pierson Wiese