The harvest that o'erflows the vale, And swells, an amber sea, between SONG OF THE SOWER, p. 279. Who, when the kind release From sin and suffering came, Leave at my side a space, Where thou shalt come, at last, To find a resting-place, When many years are past. THE SONG OF THE SOWER. I. THE maples redden in the sun; In autumn gold the beeches stand; Rest, faithful plough, thy work is done Upon the teeming land. Bordered with trees whose gay leaves fly On every breath that sweeps the sky, The fresh dark acres furrowed lie, And ask the sower's hand. Loose the tired steer and let him go II. Fling wide the generous grain; we fling O'er the dark mould the green of spring. For thick the emerald blades shall grow, When first the March winds melt the snow, And to the sleeping flowers, below, Fling wide the grain; we give the fields The harvest that o'erflows the vale, The song of him who binds the grain, III. Fling wide the golden shower; we trust As o'er them, in the yellow grains, For mortal strife, the warrior's veins; Such as, on Solferino's day, Slaked the brown sand and flowed away;Flowed till the herds, on Mincio's brink, Snuffed the red stream and feared to drink ;— Blood that in deeper pools shall lie, On the sad earth, as time grows gray, When men by deadlier arts shall die, And deeper darkness blot the sky And chieftains to the war shall lead Till man, by love and mercy taught, Oh strew, with pausing, shuddering hand, As if, at every step, ye cast The pelting hail and riving blast. IV. Nay, strew, with free and joyous sweep, Till its broad banks lie bare; And him who breaks the quarry-ledge, With hammer-blows, plied quick and strong, And him who, with the steady sledge, Smites the shrill anvil all day long, Sprinkle the furrow's even trace For those whose toiling hands uprear The roof-trees of our swarming race, By grove and plain, by stream and mere; Who forth, from crowded city, lead With pavement of the murmuring way. Cast, with full hands, the harvest cast, For the brave men that climb the mast, When to the billow and the blast It swings and stoops, with fearful strain, And bind the fluttering mainsail fast, Till the tossed bark shall sit, again, Safe as a sea-bird on the main. V. Fling wide the grain for those who throw In the long row of humming rooms, The web that, from a thousand looms, Strew, with free sweep, the grain for them, Along the garment's even hem And winding seam is led; A pallid sisterhood, that keep The lonely lamp alight, In strife with weariness and sleep, Beyond the middle night. Large part be theirs in what the year Shall ripen for the reaper here. VI. Still, strew, with joyous hand, the wheat On the soft mould beneath our feet, |