Maudlin

Maudlin

When all the day’s small tasks were done,
The ledger closed, the letters sent,
The hearth swept clean, the setting sun
Gone down on hours so fully spent,

He sat me by the dying fire
And poured a measure, deep and red,
And felt the old, unbidden choir
Of memories rise up from the dead.

There was the friend he ceased to write,
The brush and easel laid aside,
His father’s laughter, warm and bright,
And all the years that slipped and died

While he was busy at his care,
Mending what others let fall through;
He had not marked them passing there,
And now he wept, as fools will do.

‘Tis sentimental, he confessed
A foolish thing for one so grown;
Yet let the heart its grief express
When it at last is left alone.

For he who bears the whole day’s weight
And bears it with a steady hand
May weep a little, soft and late,
And God, he said, will understand.

The tears are not a sign of wrong,
Nor proof that one has failed the test;
They are the burden of the strong
Set down, at last, to take its rest.