Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HARVEST TIME IN VERMONT, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HARVEST TIME IN VERMONT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I like that scripture line that says
Last Line: They are not white for harvest now.
Subject(s): Harvest; Vermont


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.





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