ONE missing from the hoard! | |
| The nine bright shekels gleaming in the chest! | |
| Ah, can it be restored? | |
| Will eyes know slumber or the eyelids rest, | |
| |
| Till it be found again, | 5 |
| And all the savings of each lonely hour, | |
| Fruit of much toil and pain, | |
| Be hidden in the vault below the tower? | |
| |
| With earthen lamp in hand, | |
| She looks through chinks and crannies of the house, | 10 |
| The floor well strewn with sand, | |
| The pathways of the spider and the mouse. | |
| |
| She fails, and fain would weep; | |
| It is not in the vaulted upper room; | |
| And yet she still must sweep; | 15 |
| Perchance it lies within the court-yard’s gloom. | |
| |
| At last a sudden gleam, | |
| A chink of metal on the sanded floor; | |
| It is not then a dream, | |
| She grasps the long-lost wanderer from her store. | 20 |
| |
| More joy in finding that | |
| Than when she earned the nine and laid them by, | |
| Beneath the woven mat, | |
| Or where the stalks of flax and barley lie. | |
| |
| Then hastes she to the well, | 25 |
| Where at the sunset maids and matrons meet; | |
| Her joy she needs must tell, | |
| To every friend that treads the village street. | |
| |
| With eager, trembling voice | |
| She bids them track each step of all her round: | 30 |
| “Come, come, with me rejoice; | |
| The palm-stamped skekel that was lost is found.” | |
| |
| Ah, Mother mine, Christ’s Church, | |
| Dost thou not hear the lesson meant for thee, | |
| Wilt thou not seek and search? | 35 |
| Why sitt’st thou idly as the moments flee? | |
| |
| Rise, sweep thou till thou find, | |
| Find the true coin that came from God’s own mint, | |
| Bearing on sense and mind, | |
| His image and the legend’s clear imprint. | 40 |
| |
| God’s great and wondrous Name | |
| That lost soul hears, and wilt thou calmly wait, | |
| In coward sloth and tame, | |
| Delay thy searching till ’tis all too late? | |
| |
| Too soon the outline clear | 45 |
| Is waned and worn, the legend half effaced, | |
| And, fainter year by year, | |
| At last the primal likeness scarce is traced. | |
| |
| Ah, sweep the chambers well, | |
| Lest the lost coin should drop thro’ gaping floor, | 50 |
| And lying where it fell, | |
| Rest in the deep thick darkness evermore. | |
| |
| Rise, seek and thou shalt find: | |
| The man retains some likeness to the boy. | |
| Hope still remains behind, | 55 |
| And o’er thy treasure-trove the hearts of Angels joy. | |
| |
