Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WORKS AND DAYS: THE FARMER'S YEAR: WHEN THE CRANE FLIES SOUTH, by HESIOD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WORKS AND DAYS: THE FARMER'S YEAR: WHEN THE CRANE FLIES SOUTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mark, when you hear aloft in the clouds of the sky
Last Line: For the coming of grey-husked spring and the season of rain.
Subject(s): Farm Life; Agriculture; Farmers


MARK, when you hear aloft in the clouds of the sky,
crying her yearly cry of warning, the crane!
She gives the signal for ploughing and heralds the rain
of winter, but makes the oxless farmer mourn.
Go then and feed in the byre your crumple-horn.

'Lend me your oxen and waggon,' it's easy to say.
It's easy to answer, 'I've work for my oxen to-day.'
The dreamer thinks that his waggon is built, but his wits
betray him. A waggon needs timber, a hundred bits!
See that you have them prepared, each one, in your store.

As soon as the time of ploughing's announced once more,
make haste, yourself and your slaves, in wet and in dry,
to plough the land ere the time for ploughing goes by.
Early to work! and thick will your harvest be found.
Plough in the spring, or in summer break fallow-ground.
The fallow ought to be sown while the soil is light,
the fallow puts children to sleep and troubles to flight.

And pray to Zeus of the Earth and Demeter the Pure
that the holy grain of Demeter's crop may be sure,
when first you plough, when you grasp the handle and wield
your stick on the backs of the oxen that draw down the field
the pole of the plough by the yoke-straps; and, as you go,
let a slave make trouble for birds in your rear with a hoe
by hiding the seeds. Good husbandry still is the first
of blessings: of evils bad husbandry still is the worst.

Then the fat ears of the corn will bow to the soil
if but the Olympian smiles and completes your toil.
You'll clear your bins of cobwebs; I make no doubt,
your heart will be glad as you serve your substance out.
In ease you'll await grey spring, with unenvious eyes,
and it's others will come and be begging with thriftless sighs.

But if at the solstice you furrow the trusty land,
sitting you'll reap, and grasp all your grain in your hand;
dusty, with criss-cross sheaves, a figure of woe,
one basket-load on your back, unregarded you'll go.

Yet Zeus of the Buckler at times varies his will,
and mortal men with their guess can misread it still.
One chance there is of redemption for late-ploughing folk.
When first the cuckoo calls from the leaves of the oak
and over the boundless earth spreads merry hours,
if three days later Zeus will send you showers
to fill the print of an ox-hoof and then to stop,
the late-sown fields as well as the early will crop.
Keep all these facts in your mind. Be ready again
for the coming of grey-husked spring and the season of rain.





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