Thomas S. Jones Jr. Poems

Across the fields of yesterday
   He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play --
   The lad I used to be.
...

To-night eternity alone is near:
   The sea, the sunset, and the darkening blue;
Within their shelter is no space for fear,
   Only the wonder that such things are true.
...

The first glad token of the Spring is here
   That bears each time one miracle the more,
   For in the sunlight is the golden ore,
The joyous promise of a waking year;
...

O little buds all bourgeoning with Spring,
   You hold my winter in forgetfulness;
Without my window lilac branches swing,
Within my gate I hear a robin sing --
...

How may one hold these days of wonderment
   And bind them into stillness with a thong,
   Ere as a fleeting dream they pass along
Into the waste of lovely things forspent;
...

Wind-washed and free, full-swept by rain and wave,
   By tang of surf and thunder of the gale,
   Wild be the ride yet safe the barque will sail
And past the plunging seas her harbor brave;
...

Behind the pinions of the Seraphim,
   Whose wings flame out upon the swinging spheres,
   There is a Voice that speaks the numbered years
Until that Day when all comes back to Him;
...

Spring!
And all our valleys turning into green,
Remembering --
As I remember! So my heart turns glad
...

Down through the spheres that chant the Name of One
   Who is the Law of Beauty and of Light
   He came, and as He came the waiting Night
Shook with the gladness of a Day begun;
...