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In Cornwall and Across the Sea

With Poems Written in Devonshire. By Douglas B. W. Sladen

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THE HARVEST.
  
  
  
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100

THE HARVEST.

I.

He scattered his seed in due season,
But cruel the early frost;
The rain and the sun were against him;
He dreamed that his crop was lost.
But later it waxed and it whitened,
And harvesters gathered it in,
And some of it went to the windmill,
And some of it bode in the bin.
And, after, they feasted and rested,
The goodman along with his men,
For they knew that their work was over
Till ploughing came round again.

101

II.

Was his brain-seed scattered in season
Or early? He long must doubt,
While censure with winter threatened,
And after-neglect with drought.
But his brain-crop grew and it ripened,
And the reapers, who seek good grain,
Had gathered the harvest exulting,
And then he had sown again.
For little of feasting and resting
Do the sowers of brain-seed know,
Till ploughing and sowing are over
And they go whither all men go.
And when he is resting for ever
His friends will they weep or rejoice,
Beholding the fruits of the sowing
But missing the musical voice?