Classic Poem

What sound was that? A pheasant's whir?
What stroke was that? Lean low thine ear.
Is that the stroke of the carpenter,
That far, faint echo that we hear?
Is that the sound that sometime Bedouins tell
Of hammer stroke as from His hand it fell?

Is it the stroke of the carpenter,
Through eighteen hundred years and more
Still sounding down the hallowed stir
Of patient toil; as when He wore
The leathern dress, — the echo of a sound
That thrills for aye the toiling, sensate ground?

Hear Mary weaving! Listen! Hear
The thud of loom at weaving time
In Nazareth. I weave this dear
Tradition with my lowly rhyme.
Believing everywhere that she may hear
The sound of toil, sweet Mary bends an ear.

Yea, this the toil that Jesus knew;
Yet we complain if we must bear.
Are we more dear? Are we more true?
Give us, O God, and do not spare!
Give us to bear as Christ and Mary bore
With toil by leaf-girt Nazareth of yore!