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A continuing selection of classic and contemporary poems.

Guerdon

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year
      I saw a tear.
Alas!  I murmured, that the Year should borrow
      So soon a sorrow.
Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame:
      The tear became
A wondrous diamond sparkling in the light—
      A beauteous sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss,
      I said, “The Cross
Is grievous for a life as young as mine.”
      Just then, like wine,
God’s sunlight shone from His high Heavens down;
      And lo! a crown
Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden—
      My sorrow’s guerdon.
Online text © 1998-2009 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems of Cheer | Gay and Hancock, 1914
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