I LIKE that Scripture line that says The fields are white for harvest—yes, Already white—such fields Vermont Now shows in all their fruitfulness; The season's summit lies behind, The time has passed for spade and plow, The sickle and the scythe appear— The fields are white for harvest now. The rye and oaten stalks are crisp, The curling corn leaves quite the same, With edges like that desert growth That wears a bayonet in its name; The buckwheat, true, has not yet said How many bins it will endow, But it's a-blossoming just as white As though 'twere time for harvest now. It makes me think that Virgil speaks Of Autumn lifting up his head Within the fields, and brings to mind The words the "household poet" said About the bearded grain and flowers, That 'neath a common stroke must bow— In literature as well as life The fields are white for harvest now. The eager farmer boy resolves To learn to bind his sheaf of grain, And halfway kneeling, makes his band And knots it with heroic strain; Then straightening up, he stooks his sheaf, Inspects his hands, unhats his brow, And dreams, perchance, of other fields Than those he helps to harvest now. To plow, to sow, and then to reap— So runs the old and ordered plan, For whoso gathereth into barns Is prudent since the world began; The time to sow is sowing time, While yet the buds are on the bough, 'Tis time to reap when fields are white And they are white for harvest now. Would that those scarlet fields of war Might see their fearful reaping end, And that in place of "shot" and "shell" Might come such words as "faith" and "friend;" Would that those fields were white, and peace Secured by universal vow— It darkens heaven and earth to know They are not white for harvest now. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FLOWER-GATHERING by ROBERT FROST THE CAPTAINS OF THE YEARS by ARTHUR RAYMOND MACDOUGALL JR. THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT; GEORGE III AND A DYING WOMAN IN WINDSOR FOREST by ROBERT SOUTHEY AN HYMN OF HEAVENLY BEAUTY by EDMUND SPENSER TO MR. WILLIAM BASSE UPON THE NOW PUBLISHING OF HIS POEMS by RALPH BATHURST TO CHILDREN: 2. BRAGGARTS by WILLIAM ROSE BENET BATTLE AT THE RIVER RAISIN; JANUARY 22, 1813 by LEVI BISHOP |