Come, friend, I'll turn thee up again: <br />Companion of the lonely hour! <br />Spring thirty times hath fed with rain <br />And cloath'd with leaves my humble bower, <br />Since thou hast stood <br />In frame of wood, <br />On Chest or Window by my side: <br />At every Birth still thou wert near, <br />Still spoke thine admonitions clear.-- <br />And, when my Husband died, <br /> <br />I've often watch'd thy streaming sand <br />And seen the growing Mountain rise, <br />And often found Life's hopes to stand <br />On props as weak in Wisdom's eyes: <br />Its conic crown <br />Still sliding down, <br />Again heap'd up, then down again; <br />The sand above more hollow grew, <br />Like days and years still filt'ring through, <br />And mingling joy and pain. <br /> <br />While thus I spin and sometimes sing, <br />(For now and then my heart will glow) <br />Thou measur'st Time's expanding wing <br />By thee the noontide hour I know: <br />Though silent thou, <br />Still shalt thou flow, <br />And jog along thy destin'd way: <br />But when I glean the sultry fields, <br />When Earth her yellow Harvest yields, <br />Thou get'st a Holiday. <br /> <br />Steady as Truth, on either end <br />Thy daily task performing well, <br />Thou'rt Meditation's constant friend, <br />And strik'st the Heart without a Bell: <br />Come, lovely May! <br />Thy lengthen'd day <br />Shall gild once more thy native plain; <br />Curl inward here, sweet Woodbine flow'r;-- <br />'Companion of the lonely hour, <br />'I'll turn thee up again.<br /><br />Robert Bloomfield<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-widow-to-her-hour-glass/
