The Home Circle by Lucy Larcom

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 26, 1885

The Home Circle.

By Lucy Larcom

THERE IS BLACK IN THE BLUE OF THE SKY.

An artist one day at his easel stood, And sketched with a pencil free, The gold of the meadow, the green of the wood, And the purple and gray of the sea. A child looked over, a little way back, And questioned the artist, "Why Do you mix with your color a touch of black, When you paint the blue in the sky?"

"Only because I see it, my child; I am painting the sky as it is;" And he softly said to himself, and smiled: "It is one of earth's mysteries; Not the lily itself wears a perfect white; Nor the red rose an unmixed dye; There is light in shadows, and shadow in light, And black in the blue of the sky."

There are films over nature everywhere, To soothe and refresh our sight, For mortal eyes were not made to bear The dazzle of shadeless light. Our consolation and our complaint, Awaking both smile and sigh, There are human faults in the holiest saint; There is black in the blue of the sky.

But we've read from the leaves of an old-fashioned Book, Of one in the glory unseen, Whose gaze the poor seraphim dare not brook, Before whom the heavens are unclean. And the hope of the Christian is in the thought Of a truth and a love so high That possible evil sullies them not; No black in the blue of their sky.

—Lucy Larcom, in Youth's Companion.