Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

By Edward A. U.Valentine

1620 The Spirit of the Wheat

SUCH times as windy moods do stir

The foamless billows of the wheat,

I glimpse the floating limbs of her

In instant visions melting sweet.

A milky shoulder’s dip and gleam,

Or arms that clasp upon the air,

An upturned face’s rosy dream,

Half blinded by the sunlit hair.

A haunting mermaid mid the swell

And rapture of that summer sea;

A siren of elusive spell,

Born of the womb of mystery,—

That, airy-limbed, swims fancy free,

Glad in the summer’s perfect prime,

Full-veined with life’s felicity

And faith that knows no winter-time.

At eve, when firefly lustre burns

On that green flood like mirrored stars,

Against the hush her faint voice yearns,

Breathed to a light harp’s happy bars.

Till sinks at last in sunset slow

Midsummer’s long, luxurious day,

And amber-red the ripe waves glow,

Ah, then it is she slips away!

For with the blighting dog-star’s blaze,

The reapers wade within the wheat,

And as they work in harvest ways,

What amorous sights their vision cheat!

For lo, upon some eddying wash

Or hollow of the wind-swept grain,

Her wafted fingers foam-like flash,

Her laughing body drifts amain.

It is the sylph’s divine farewell;

A sighing ebbs along the wheat;

Borne onward by a golden swell,

She fades into the wrinkling heat.