Poetry Archives

Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled
Thy plough to ring this solitary tree
 With clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,
In cool green radius twice my length may be—
 Scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,
To pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,
   That here come oft together—daily I,
   Stretched prone in summer’s mortal ecstasy,
Do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this morn
            With waving of the corn.

 Unseen, the farmer’s boy from round the hill
Whistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought,
 And fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill;
The cricket tells straight on his simple thought—
 Nay, ’tis the cricket’s way of being still;
The peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught;
   Far down the wood, a one-desiring dove
   Times me the beating of the heart of love:
And these be all the sounds that mix, each morn,
            With waving of the corn.

 From here to where the louder passions dwell,
Green leagues of hilly separation roll:
 Trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell.
Ye terrible Towns, ne’er claim the trembling soul
 That, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell,
From out your deadly complex quarrel stole
   To company with large amiable trees,
   Suck honey summer with unjealous bees,
And take Time’s strokes as softly as this morn
            Takes waving of the corn.


West Chester, Pa., 1876.