The harvest that o'erflows the vale,

And swells, an amber sea, between
The full-leaved woods.

SONG OF THE SOWER, p. 279.

Who, when the kind release

From sin and suffering came,
Passed to the appointed peace
In murmuring thy name.

Leave at my side a space,

Where thou shalt come, at last,

To find a resting-place,

When many years are past.

THE SONG OF THE SOWER.

I.

THE maples redden in the sun;

In autumn gold the beeches stand; Rest, faithful plough, thy work is done Upon the teeming land.

Bordered with trees whose gay leaves fly On every breath that sweeps the sky, The fresh dark acres furrowed lie,

And ask the sower's hand.

Loose the tired steer and let him go
To pasture where the gentians blow,
And we, who till the grateful ground,
Fling we the golden shower around.

II.

Fling wide the generous grain; we fling O'er the dark mould the green of spring. For thick the emerald blades shall grow, When first the March winds melt the snow,

And to the sleeping flowers, below,
The early bluebirds sing.

Fling wide the grain; we give the fields
The ears that nod in summer's gale,
The shining stems that summer gilds,

The harvest that o'erflows the vale,
And swells, an amber sea, between
The full-leaved woods, its shores of green.
Hark! from the murmuring clods I hear
Glad voices of the coming year;

The song of him who binds the grain,
The shout of those that load the wain,
And from the distant grange there comes
The clatter of the thresher's flail,
And steadily the millstone hums
Down in the willowy vale.

III.

Fling wide the golden shower; we trust
The strength of armies to the dust.
This peaceful lea may haply yield
Its harvest for the tented field.
Ha! feel ye not your fingers thrill,

As o'er them, in the yellow grains,
Glide the warm drops of blood that fill,

For mortal strife, the warrior's veins; Such as, on Solferino's day,

Slaked the brown sand and flowed away;Flowed till the herds, on Mincio's brink, Snuffed the red stream and feared to drink ;—

Blood that in deeper pools shall lie,

On the sad earth, as time grows gray, When men by deadlier arts shall die,

And deeper darkness blot the sky
Above the thundering fray;
And realms, that hear the battle-cry,
Shall sicken with dismay;

And chieftains to the war shall lead
Whole nations, with the tempest's speed,
To perish in a day ;—

Till man, by love and mercy taught,
Shall rue the wreck his fury wrought,
And lay the sword away!

Oh strew, with pausing, shuddering hand,
The seed upon the helpless land,

As if, at every step, ye cast

The pelting hail and riving blast.

IV.

Nay, strew, with free and joyous sweep,
The seed upon the expecting soil;
For hence the plenteous year shall heap
The garners of the men who toil.
Strew the bright seed for those who tear
The matted sward with spade and share,
And those whose sounding axes gleam
Beside the lonely forest-stream,

Till its broad banks lie bare;

And him who breaks the quarry-ledge,

With hammer-blows, plied quick and strong, And him who, with the steady sledge, Smites the shrill anvil all day long,

Sprinkle the furrow's even trace

For those whose toiling hands uprear

The roof-trees of our swarming race,

By grove and plain, by stream and mere;

Who forth, from crowded city, lead
The lengthening street, and overlay
Green orchard-plot and grassy mead

With pavement of the murmuring way. Cast, with full hands, the harvest cast, For the brave men that climb the mast, When to the billow and the blast

It swings and stoops, with fearful strain, And bind the fluttering mainsail fast, Till the tossed bark shall sit, again, Safe as a sea-bird on the main.

V.

Fling wide the grain for those who throw
The clanking shuttle to and fro,

In the long row of humming rooms,
And into ponderous masses wind

The web that, from a thousand looms,
Comes forth to clothe mankind.

Strew, with free sweep, the grain for them,
By whom the busy thread,

Along the garment's even hem

And winding seam is led; A pallid sisterhood, that keep The lonely lamp alight,

In strife with weariness and sleep,

Beyond the middle night.

Large part be theirs in what the year

Shall ripen for the reaper here.

VI.

Still, strew, with joyous hand, the wheat

On the soft mould beneath our feet,