The Golden Chain

 

So stern, so grave, your faces on the wall,

My ancestors, forbidding and remote.

Two hundred years divide us, five-time-great,

But still across that gulf I bear your name.

 

You, Sir, in lace cravat and tight frock coat,

Your stony face was never creased in smiles?

And you, his stately wife, all starched and stiff,

Such dignity was never marred by blame.

 

And yet you must have loved and laughed like me,

Been sad and merry, moved by joy and pain,

So frail and human; yet each one of us

A solid link in God’s most precious gift –

The golden chain of immortality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

© 2023 Barbara Godfrey & Black Cat Communications
All rights reserved