Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HARVEST IN UMATILLA, by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HARVEST IN UMATILLA, by                    
First Line: Heigh-ho! For the oregon highlands
Last Line: Umatilla is reaping her wheat!
Subject(s): Harvest; Oregon


Heigh-ho! for the Oregon highlands,
That Garden of Ceres aglisten!
Climb a Blue Mountain summit supernal!
Put your ear to the ground as you listen!
And what is that tremble and tramping?
'Tis a score and more thousand of feet—
'Tis an army of harvester horses—
Umatilla is cutting her wheat.

Hear the champing and tramping and neighing,
The buzz and the hum and the rattle!
O, the billowy cereal ocean
Is a glorious field for the battle.
Hear the whistle and song of the drivers!
See the maidens with hurrying feet!
Umatilla is threshing in earnest
Her five million bushels of wheat.

And look at the pyramids rising,
And the long laden trains on the way!
Why, for each one of Uncle Sam's children
A biscuit is reaped in a day.
Then take off your hats, all ye rivals,
And cast your bouquets at her feet,
And yell like the "rooters" in college—
Umatilla is reaping her wheat!





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