Dreamers and Other Poems

<p><SPAN name="BLACK_SHEEP" id="BLACK_SHEEP"></SPAN>BLACK SHEEP</p> <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>Have you any wool?"</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>"That I have, my Master,</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>Three bags full."</i></span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">One is for the mother who prays for me at night&mdash;</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell&mdash;</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">And one is for the true love&mdash;the heaviest of all&mdash;</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>Black Sheep, Black Sheep,</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>Have you ought to say?</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;"><i>A word to each, my Master,</i></span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 7em;"><i>Ere I go my way.</i></span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Only as a little lad playing at her knee.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Two laughing lads in Springtime a-racing down the glen.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">A word unto my true love&mdash;a single word&mdash;to pray</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">If one day I cross her path to turn her eyes away.</span><br/> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />