Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE INDIAN CORN PLANTER, by EMILY PAULINE JOHNSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE INDIAN CORN PLANTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He needs must leave the trapping and the chase
Last Line: With fostering richness, mothers every grain.
Alternate Author Name(s): Tekahionwake
Subject(s): Hunting; Labor & Laborers; Native Americans; Plants; Hunters; Work; Workers; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America; Planting; Planters


HE NEEDS must leave the trapping and the chase,
For mating game his arrows ne'er despoil,
And from the hunter's heaven turn his face,
To wring some promise from the dormant soil.

He needs must leave the lodge that wintered him,
The enervating fires, the blanket bed—
The women's dulcet voices, for the grim
Realities of labouring for bread.

So goes he forth beneath the planter's moon
With sack of seed that pledges large increase,
His simple pagan faith knows night and noon,
Heat, cold, seedtime and harvest shall not cease.

And yielding to his needs, this honest sod,
Brown as the hand that tills it, moist with rain,
Teeming with ripe fulfilment, true as God,
With fostering richness, mothers every grain.





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