Sun on the mountain,
Shade in the valley,
Ripple and
Leaping along the world,
Sun, like a gold
Plucked from the scabbard,
Striking the wheat-fields,
Splendid and lusty,
Close-standing, full-headed,
Toppling with plenty;
Shade, like a
Kindly and ample,
Sweeping the
Darkening and tossing;
There on the
Winds break and
Heaping the
For the pyre of the sunset;
And still as a shadow,
In the dim westward,
A cloud sloop of
Moored to the
With cables of rain.
Acres of gold
Stir in the sunshine,
Rounding the hill-top,
Crested with plenty,
Filling the valley,
Brimmed with abundance,
Wind in the
Eddying and settling,
Swaying it, sweeping it,
Lifting the rich heads,
Tossing them
Twinkle and
The lights and the shadowings,
Nimble as
Astir in the mere.
Laden with
Of peace and of plenty,
Soft comes the
From the ranks of the wheat-field,
Bearing a promise Of harvest and sickle-time,
Opulent
Dusty and dim With the whirl of the flail,
And wagons of bread,
Sown-laden and
Through the gateways of cities.
When will the reapers Strike in their sickles,
Bending and grasping,
Shearing and spreading;
When will the
Searching the
Take the last
Home in their arms ?
Ask not the question! -Something
Moves to the answer.
Hunger and
Heaped like the
Welters and mutters,
Hold back the sickles!
Millions of
Born to their mothers' womb,
Starved at the nipple, cry,—Ours is the harvest!
Millions of women Learned in the
Secrets of poverty,
Sweated and beaten, cry,—Hold back the sickles!
Millions of
With a vestige of manhood,
Wild-eyed and gaunt-throated,
Shout with a
Accent of anger,
Leaves us the wheat-fields!
When will the reapers Strike in their sickles?
Ask not the question;
Something
Moves to the answer.
Long have they
Their fiery,
Sickles of carnage,
Welded them
Ago in the
Of suffering and anguish;
Hearts were their hammers Blood was their fire,
Sorrow their anvil,(Trusty the
Tempered with tears Time they had plenty-Harvests and
Passed them in agony,
Only a
Ear for their lot;
Man that has
God for a
Made him a law,
Mocked him and cursed him,
Set up this hunger,
Called it necessity,
Put in the blameless
Juda's language:
The poor ye have with
Always, unending.
But up from the
Anguish of children,
Up from the
Fruitless, unmeaning,
Of millions of mothers,
Hugely necessitous,
Grew by a just
Stern and implacable,
Art born of poverty,
The making of
Meet for the harvest.
And now to the
Come the weird
Armed with their sickles,
Whipping them
In the fresh-air fields,
Wild with the joy of them,
Finding them trusty,
Hilted with teen.
Swarming like ants,
The Idea for captain,
No banners, no bugles,
Only a
Ground-bass of
Tempest and fury,
Only a
Of arms and of garments;
Sexless and featureless,(Only the
Different among them,
Crawling between their feet,
Borne on their shoulders Rolling their shaggy
Wild with the
Drug of the sunshine;
Tears that had
The half of their
Dry on their cheeks;
Blood in their stiffened
Clouted and darkened;
Down in their cavern
Hunger the tiger,
Leaping, exulting;
Sighs that had choked
Burst into triumphing;
On they come,
Victory!
Up to the wheat-fields,
Dreamed of in
Bred by the hunger,
Seen for the first
Splendid and golden;
On they come fluctuant,
Seething and breaking,
Weltering like
In the pit of the earthquake,
Bursting in
With the sudden
Lust of the hunger:
Then when they see them-The miles of the
White in the sunshine,
Rushing and stumbling,
With the mighty and
Cry of a
Starved from creation,
Hurl themselves onward,
Deep in the wheat-fields,
Weeping like children,
After ages and ages,
Back at the mother the earth.
Night in the valley,
Gloom on the mountain,
Wind in the wheat,
Far to the
The flutter of lightning,
The shudder of thunder;
But high at the zenith,
A cluster of
Glimmers and
In the gasp of the midnight,
Steady and absolute,
Ancient and sure
