Elizabeth J. Coatsworth

From “Vermilion Seals”

THE DUST is thick along the road;

The fields are scorching in the sun;

My wife has ever a bitter word

To greet me when the day is done.

The neighbors rest beside the gate

But half their words are high and shrill.

My son is over-young to help;

The fields are very hard to till.

But in the dusk I raise my eyes—

The poet’s words come back to me:

“In the moon there is a white jade gate

Shadowed cool by a cassia tree.”