Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


NORMAN PEASANTS by MARTHA HALE SHACKFORD

First Line: THOSE WORKERS IN THE FIELDS AND HEAT
Last Line: TO MEET THE FADING STARS, EACH DAY.
Subject(s): NORMANDY, FRANCE; PEASANTRY; WELLESLEY COLLEGE;

THOSE workers in the fields and heat,
With straining arms and dusty feet,
Mock all the idylls done in verse,
Which discontented men rehearse.

They match all day the heavy tread
Of six white oxen yoked ahead;
And plough the shadeless, level plain,
Or pile their stacks of yellow grain.

Beyond their blue horizon line
They do not seek for redder wine,
But go their slow, ancestral way,
To meet the fading stars, each day.



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