Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE UNREAPED FIELD, by NIKOLAY ALEXEYEVICH NEKRASOV



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE UNREAPED FIELD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: It grows late autumn, and the rooks are flown
Last Line: "ploughing and meditating as he ploughed."
Alternate Author Name(s): Nekrasov, N. A.
Subject(s): Autumn; Seasons; Fall


IT grows late Autumn, and the rooks are flown;
The woods are bare; all empty stands the plain;
One field is yet unreaped, one field alone.
It sets me musing in a mournful train.

Surely these cornstalks whisper one to the other:
"This Autumn wind, it has a weary sound;
And weary work it is to sink and smother
good grain in dust by bending tops to ground.

"The mighty havoc of these wild horse-droves!
The hares that trample us down, the squalls that batter!
The toll to every robber-beak that roves! ...
Where is the goodman tarrying? What's the matter?

"Are we so worse a plant than all the rest?
Blade, bloom and grain -- what found he to mislike?
Nay, 'tis not that; we're buxom at the best:
Long since the full ear plumped the nodding spike.

"Was it for this he ploughed and sowed the piece,
That autumn winds should scatter our increase?"

A doleful answer on the winds comes blowing:
"He's no more man to do the work you ask.
He meant not this at ploughing time or sowing,
Nor reckoned strength should fail him for his task.

"He cannot eat or drink -- the worm so burrows
And sucks his heart that now poor Gaffer's lips
Refuse him food; the hands which traced your furrows
Are limp as any thong and shrunk to chips;

"His eyes too bleared to see; the voice quite spent
Which sang his melancholy thought aloud
While gripping the ash-tail hard, the old yeoman went
Ploughing and meditating as he ploughed."





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