 | Between Doubting and Daring |  |
1
Harvest, A.D. 1914
(By the Wayside)
I
O'er harvest hills soft haze of shimmering heat
Folds blue and dim; glows fiery sheen of wheat
At core of amber sunbeams; kindled white
The road creeps in beneath green shadow plight
Of woven branches. Here two gossips greet:
‘Good morning ma'am; sure 'tis the grand hot day.’
‘Aye, aye, too hot for our poor lads away
Off yonder in the battles where they fight.’
‘Ah, cold enough, God knows, before this night
'Tis many a one will sleep.’
Folds blue and dim; glows fiery sheen of wheat
At core of amber sunbeams; kindled white
The road creeps in beneath green shadow plight
Of woven branches. Here two gossips greet:
‘Good morning ma'am; sure 'tis the grand hot day.’
‘Aye, aye, too hot for our poor lads away
Off yonder in the battles where they fight.’
‘Ah, cold enough, God knows, before this night
'Tis many a one will sleep.’
Such talk have they
Along the footpaths flecked with leaves and light.
Along the footpaths flecked with leaves and light.
II
The road glares like a white-hot ploughshare thrustAthwart the plain, whereon a rider lone
Three times the blaze of noontide fierce hath known,
Mocked with the parching air, the blinding dust,
For all his daily fare; still, grown half-blind,
Goes stumbling, starved, and goads his starving horse
With ruthless steel, that rage may leave remorse
The more to sadden his sick heart. Yet shined
This summer day that ripes the red-gold corn
2
Draws nigh through heavier hours a desolate end;
Since comes in foeman's guise his one grim friend,
Nor holds his cruel doom a kinder fate
Than if ere close the sunset's fire-silled gate,
Some long-flamed shaft a curven blade should bend
And thither so reach, that, reaped as harvest fruit,
Be to the great Dark gathered man and brute.
| Between Doubting and Daring | |