| |
| I SEE amid the fields of Ayr | |
| A ploughman, who, in foul and fair, | |
| Sings at his task | |
| So clear, we know not if it is | |
| The laverock’s song we hear, or his, | 5 |
| Nor care to ask. | |
| |
| For him the ploughing of those fields | |
| A more ethereal harvest yields | |
| Than sheaves of grain; | |
| Songs flush with purple bloom the rye, | 10 |
| The plover’s call, the curlew’s cry, | |
| Sing in his brain. | |
| |
| Touched by his hand, the wayside weed | |
| Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed | |
| Beside the stream | 15 |
| Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass | |
| And heather, where his footsteps pass, | |
| The brighter seem. | |
| |
| He sings of love, whose flame illumes | |
| The darkness of lone cottage rooms; | 20 |
| He feels the force, | |
| The treacherous undertow and stress | |
| Of wayward passions, and no less | |
| The keen remorse. | |
| |
| At moments, wrestling with his fate, | 25 |
| His voice is harsh, but not with hate; | |
| The brush-wood, hung | |
| Above the tavern door, lets fall | |
| Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall | |
| Upon his tongue. | 30 |
| |
| But still the music of his song | |
| Rises o’er all, elate and strong; | |
| Its master-chords | |
| Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood, | |
| Its discords but an interlude | 35 |
| Between the words. | |
| |
| And then to die so young and leave | |
| Unfinished what he might achieve! | |
| Yet better sure | |
| Is this, than wandering up and down, | 40 |
| An old man in a country town, | |
| Infirm and poor. | |
| |
| For now he haunts his native land | |
| As an immortal youth; his hand | |
| Guides every plough; | 45 |
| He sits beside each ingle-nook, | |
| His voice is in each rushing brook, | |
| Each rustling bough. | |
| |
| His presence haunts this room to-night, | |
| A form of mingled mist and light | 50 |
| From that far coast. | |
| Welcome beneath this roof of mine! | |
| Welcome! this vacant chair is thine, | |
| Dear guest and ghost! | |
| |
