Black Sheep

"Black Sheep, Black Sheep,     Have you any wool?"     "That I have, my Master,     Three bags full."     One is for the mother who prays for me at night--     A gift of broken promises to count by candle-light.     One is for the tried friend who raised me when I fell--     A gift of weakling's tinsel oaths that strew the path to hell.     And one is for the true love--the heaviest of all--     That holds the pieces of a faith a careless hand let fall.     Black Sheep, Black Sheep,     Have you ought to say?     A word to each, my Master,     Ere I go my way.     A word unto my mother to bid her think o' me     Only as a little lad playing at her knee.     A word unto my tried friend to bid him see again     Two laughing lads in Springtime a-racing down the glen.     A word unto my true love--a single word--to pray     If one day I cross her path to turn her eyes away.