 | From Sunset Ridge |  |
133
THE BROWN SHEAVES OF THE BELGIAN HARVEST
Fair sere sisters, in your girth
Rests the sweetness of the earth.
In decorous rows ye stand,
With the riches of the land.
Rests the sweetness of the earth.
In decorous rows ye stand,
With the riches of the land.
Summer flowers unfold and die
While, without complaint or sigh
Ye endure the sun's warm eye.
While, without complaint or sigh
Ye endure the sun's warm eye.
Russet Nuns, these meadows fair
Measured for your cloister are.
You are cumbered by no vows,
Shut within no sterile house,
This your lovely task assigned,
To refresh all human kind.
Rustic hearts at break of day
From your lines their matins say,
And, when hours of work decline,
Nod to you their vespers fine.
Measured for your cloister are.
You are cumbered by no vows,
Shut within no sterile house,
This your lovely task assigned,
To refresh all human kind.
Rustic hearts at break of day
From your lines their matins say,
And, when hours of work decline,
Nod to you their vespers fine.
In the freedom of the fields
Blazon your ancestral shields,
And your mystical device
Dates from oldest paradise.
Silver cloudlets, globe of or,
Azure field, forevermore,
Gules of sunset, verging on
To the Night's ensabled tone.
Blazon your ancestral shields,
134
Dates from oldest paradise.
Silver cloudlets, globe of or,
Azure field, forevermore,
Gules of sunset, verging on
To the Night's ensabled tone.
Not alone to offer bread
Was your ministration sped,
But to nerve man's arm to toil,
Bringing treasure from the soil,
Building peace for mate and child,
Better than the huntsman wild.
Showing how Life's fountain springs
From the lowliest of things,
From the nurture of the sod
Soul that sees the face of God.
Was your ministration sped,
But to nerve man's arm to toil,
Bringing treasure from the soil,
Building peace for mate and child,
Better than the huntsman wild.
Showing how Life's fountain springs
From the lowliest of things,
From the nurture of the sod
Soul that sees the face of God.
| From Sunset Ridge | |