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Joseph Campbell
I see all love in lowly things,
No less than in the lusts of kings:
All beauty, shape and comeliness,
All valour, strength and gentleness,
All genius, wit and holiness.
Out of corruption comes the flower,
The corn is kindred with the clay;
The plough-hand is a hand of power,
Nobler than gold, brighter than day.
Then let the leper lift his head,
The cripple dance, the captive sing,
The beggar reap and eat his bread--
He is no baser than a king!
Go, reaper,
Speed and reap,
Go take the harvest
Of the plough:
The wheat is standing
Broad and deep,
The barley glumes
Are golden now.
Labour is hard,
But it endures
Like love:
The land is yours:
Go reap the life
It gives you now,
O sunbrowned master
Of the plough!
The proud and sturdy horses
Gather their willing forces,
Unswerving make their courses
Over the brown
Earth that was mowing meadow
A month agone, where shadow
And light in the tall grasses
Quivered and was gone.
They spoil the nest of plover
And lark, turn up, uncover
The bones of many a lover
Unfamed in tales;
Arrows, old flints of hammers,
The rooks with hungry clamours
Hover around and settle
Seeking full meals.
As men whose bones are wind-blown dust, have sung,
Let me sing now!
I'll sing of gourds, and goads, of honey, and the plough.
I am a raw uneasy parvenu,
I am uncertain of my time.
How can I pour the liquor of new days
In the old pipes of Rhyme?