Poetry

The Maiden’s Harvest

There goeth, with the early light,
Across a barren plain,
One who, with face as morning bright,
Singeth, “I come again!

“And every grain I scatter free,
An hundred-fold shall yield,
Till waveth like a golden sea
This dark and barren field.”

She casteth seed upon the ground
From out her pure white hand,
And little winds steal up around
To bear it through the land.

She strikes her harp, she sings her song;
She sings so loud and clear,
“Arise! arise! ye sleeping throng,
And bud and blossom here!”

When o’er the hills she passed away,
The Spring remembered her,
And came, with sun and air of May,
The barren earth to stir.

And dropping dew the spot did love,
And lingered there till noon;
And winds and rains moved on above
In softly-changing tune.

So, when the Autumn cometh round,
The golden heads bend low—
And near and nearer to the ground
Their royal beard doth flow.

The poor rejoice; in throngs they come
To reap the dropping grain;—
Their voices rise in busy hum:
“Who, who hath sowed the plain?

“And who hath wrought such bounteous cheer
Where all before was dead?”
They bless the unseen Giver dear
Who gave this daily bread.

With harp in hand, a maiden bright
Passed slowly by the throng,
With face as fair as sunset light
The maiden sang her song.

“In morning-time I sowed this plain,
Blest may the evening be,
Which gives back every little grain
An hundred-fold to me!”

Song

Oh bird, thou dartest to the sun
When morning beams first spring,
And I, like thee, would swiftly run,
As sweetly would I sing:

Thy burning heart doth draw thee up
Unto the source of fire;
Thou drinkest from its glowing cup,
And quenchest thy desire.

Oh dew, thou droppest soft below,
And pearlest all the ground,
Yet when the noontide comes, I know
Thou never canst be found;

I would like thine had been my birth,
Then I, without a sigh,
Might sleep my night through on the earth,
To waken in the sky.

Oh clouds, ye little tender sheep,
Pastured in fields of blue,
While moon and stars your fold can keep,
And gently shepherd you—

Let me, too, follow in the train
That flocks across the night,
Or lingers on the open plain
With new-shorn fleeces white.

Oh singing winds, that wander far,
Yet always seem at home,
And freely play ’twixt star and star,
Along the bending dome,

I often listen to your song,
Yet never hear you say
One word of all the happy worlds
That shine so far away.

For they are free, ye all are free,
And bud, and dew, and light,
Can dart upon the azure sea,
And leave me to my night;

Oh would like theirs had been my birth,
Then I, without a sigh,
Might sleep this night through on the earth
To waken in the sky.

The Alpine Sheep

Addressed to a Friend, After the Loss of a Child

When on my ear your loss was knelled,
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little spring from memory welled,
Which once had quenched my bitter thirst.

And I was fain to bear to you
A portion of its mild relief,
That it might be as healing dew,
To steal some fever from your grief.

After our child’s untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of Death
Like a long twilight haunting lay,

And friends came round, with us to weep
Her little spirit’s swift remove,
The story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love.

They, in the valley’s sheltering care,
Soon crop the meadow’s tender prime,
And when the sod grows brown and bare,
The shepherd strives to make them climb

To airy shelves of pasture green,
That hang along the mountain’s side,
Where grass and flowers together lean,
And down through mist the sunbeams slide:

But nought can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie,

Till in his arms their lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go,
Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on, o’er rock and snow.

And in those pastures, lifted fair,
More dewy-soft than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed.

This parable, by Nature breathed,
Blew on me as the South-wind free
O’er frozen brooks, that flow unsheathed
From icy thraldom, to the sea.

A blissful vision, through the night,
Would all my happy senses sway,
Of the good Shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the starry way,

Holding our little lamb asleep—
While, like the murmur of the sea,
Sounded that voice along the deep,
Saying, “Arise and follow me!”