Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads Jacobite Ballads, &c. &c. By George W. Thornbury ... with illustrations by H. S. Marks |
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HARVEST RHYMES. |
 | Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads |  |
281
HARVEST RHYMES.
When the red, ripe wheat is flowing, billow-blowing like a sea,
When the reapers call each other, early mornings on the lea;
When the poppies burn in scorn of the pale light of the dawn,
And the corn-flower tells its sorrow to its love, the kingly bee.
When the reapers call each other, early mornings on the lea;
When the poppies burn in scorn of the pale light of the dawn,
And the corn-flower tells its sorrow to its love, the kingly bee.
Now through soft mists cloudy purple rise the firtrees one by one,
Now the broad disks of the wheat-fields blaze like gold shields in the sun;
The cattle low, the breezes blow, and the sickles glitter keen,
Ruddy faces moving eager, glistening steel by flashes seen.
Now the broad disks of the wheat-fields blaze like gold shields in the sun;
The cattle low, the breezes blow, and the sickles glitter keen,
Ruddy faces moving eager, glistening steel by flashes seen.
282
This fair earth is slowly fashioned from dead lilies, so they say,
Withered roses, honied pleasures, all a-bloom but yesterday;
So life's fashioned—rendered fertile by its long corrupted joy,
Watered by the tears of childhood and the weeping of the boy.
Withered roses, honied pleasures, all a-bloom but yesterday;
So life's fashioned—rendered fertile by its long corrupted joy,
Watered by the tears of childhood and the weeping of the boy.
Heaven's hermit, high and lonely, soaring as none other can—
Praising with a simple music raining on the husbandman;
Over plough, and corn, and reaper, golden stubble, fallow grey,
Springs the lark, and craves a blessing on the coming harvest day.
Praising with a simple music raining on the husbandman;
Over plough, and corn, and reaper, golden stubble, fallow grey,
Springs the lark, and craves a blessing on the coming harvest day.
Poet of the upper air, never knowing human care,
Happy as a new-crowned angel in thy sanctity of song,
Glad in summer and in autumn, in the frost and in the sun,—
What a lesson for the worldling, fainting ere he's well begun.
Happy as a new-crowned angel in thy sanctity of song,
Glad in summer and in autumn, in the frost and in the sun,—
What a lesson for the worldling, fainting ere he's well begun.
| Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads | |