Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Ellen Mackay HutchinsonCortissoz

1130 Harvest

SWEET, sweet, sweet,

Is the wind’s song,

Astir in the rippled wheat

All day long.

It hath the brook’s wild gayety,

The sorrowful cry of the sea.

Oh hush and hear!

Sweet, sweet and clear,

Above the locust’s whirr

And hum of bee

Rises that soft, pathetic harmony.

In the meadow-grass

The innocent white daisies blow,

The dandelion plume doth pass

Vaguely to and fro,—

The unquiet spirit of a flower

That hath too brief an hour.

Now doth a little cloud all white,

Or golden bright,

Drift down the warm, blue sky;

And now on the horizon line,

Where dusky woodlands lie,

A sunny mist doth shine,

Like to a veil before a holy shrine,

Concealing, half-revealing

Things Divine.

Sweet, sweet, sweet,

Is the wind’s song,

Astir in the rippled wheat

All day long.

That exquisite music calls

The reaper everywhere—

Life and death must share,

The golden harvest falls.

So doth all end,—

Honored Philosophy,

Science and Art,

The bloom of the heart;—

Master, Consoler, Friend,

Make Thou the harvest of our days

To fall within Thy ways.