You looked as sad as an eclipséd moon
Above the sheaves of harvest, and there lay
A light lisp on your tongue, and very soon
The petals of your deep blush fell away;
White smiles that come with an uneasy grace
From inner sorrow crossed your forehead fair,
When the wind passing took your scattered hair
And flung it like a brown shower in my face.
Tear-fringéd winds that fill the heart's low sighs
And never break upon the bosom's pain,
But blow unto the windows of the eyes
Their misty promises of silver rain,
Around your loud heart ever rose and fell.
I thought 'twere better that the tears should come
And strike your every feeling wholly numb,
So thrust my hand in yours and shook fare-well.
She'll come at dusky first of day,
White over yellow harvest's song.
Upon her dewy rainbow way
She shall be beautiful and strong.
The lidless eye of noon shall spray
Tan on her ankles in the hay,
Shall kiss her brown the whole day long.
I'll know her in the windrows, tall
Above the crickets of the hay.
I'll know her when her odd eyes fall,
One May-blue, one November-grey.
I'll watch her from the red barn wall
Take down her rusty scythe, and call,
And I will follow her away.
They are mowing wheat
Through the heavy days;
Through the silent heat
They are mowing wheat;
Flat fields retreat
Into shrouding haze;
They are mowing wheat
Through the heavy days.
He said his legs were stiff and sore
For he had gone some twenty-eight miles,
And he'd walked through by watergaps
And fences and gates and stiles.
He said he'd been by Logan's woods,
And up by Walton's branch and Simms,
And there were sticktights on his clothes
And little dusts of seeds and stems.
And then he sat down on the steps,
And he said the miles were on his feet.
For some of that land was tangled brush,
And some was plowed for wheat.
The rabbits were thick where he had been,
And he said he'd found some ripe papaws.
He'd rested under a white oak tree,
And for his dinner he ate red haws.
Before the downs in their great horse-shoes rise,
I know a village where the Adur runs,
Blown by sweet winds and by beneficent suns
Visited and made ripe beneath kind skies.
Light and delight are in the children's eyes
And there the mothers sit, the fortunate ones,
Blest in their daughters, happy in their sons,
And the old men are beautiful and wise.
There stand the downs, great, close, tall, friendly, still,
Linked up by grassy saddles, hill on hill,
And steep the village in unending peace
And to the north the plains in order lie,
Heavy with crops and woods alternately
And lively with low sounds that never cease.
Red gold of pools,
Sunset furrows six o'clock,
And the farmer done in the fields
And the cows in the barns with bulging udders.
Take the cows and the farmer,
Take the barns and bulging udders.
Leave the red gold of pools
And sunset furrows six o'clock.
The farmer's wife is singing.
The farmer's boy is whistling.
I wash my hands in red gold of pools.
Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence.
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to
new cities?
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds,
crying down on the north wind in September, acres
of birds spotting the air going south?
Is there something finished? And some new beginning
on the way?
There was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.
And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.
The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.
The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.
Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always — I never knew it any other way —
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
I have sown beside all waters in my day.
I planted deep, within my heart the fear
That wind or fowl would take the grain away.
I planted safe against this stark, lean year.
I scattered seed enough to plant the land
In rows from Canada to Mexico
But for my reaping only what the hand
Can hold at once is all that I can show.
Yet what I sowed and what the orchard yields
My brother’s sons are gathering stalk and root,
Small wonder then my children glean in fields
They have not sown, and feed on bitter fruit.
Now, Tiller, hold your grain.
Leave her to sun and rain
And the kind air.
Then trench her with a well-judged measure
Of feeding pleasure.
And give her peace
To dream of her increase
And your good care.
Well might you reap miraculous yield
From such a happy, nourished field!
October - and the skies are cool and gray
O'er stubbles emptied of their latest sheaf,
Bare meadow, and the slowly falling leaf.
The dignity of woods in rich decay
Accords full well with this majestic grief
That clothes our solemn purple hills to-day,
Whose afternoon is hush'd, and wintry brief
Only a robin sings from any spray.
And night sends up her pale cold moon, and spills
White mist around the hollows of the hills,
Phantoms of firth or lake; the peasant sees
His cot and stockyard, with the homestead trees,
Islanded; but no foolish terror thrills
His perfect harvesting; he sleeps at ease.
O universal Mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,
All things that fly, or on the ground divine
Live, move, and there are nourished--these are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!
The life of mortal men beneath thy sway
Is held; thy power both gives and takes away!
Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish;
All things unstinted round them grow and flourish.
For them, endures the life-sustaining field
Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield