On the Gulf of Night

But soon the dark comes wilder than before, And swift around them breaks a sullen roar; The tempest calls to windward and to lea, And they are seabirds on the homeless sea.

A Harvest Song

The gray bulk of the granary uplooms against the sky;

The harvest moon has dwindled—they have housed the corn and rye;

And now the idle reapers lounge against the bolted doors:

Without are hungry harvesters, within enchanted stores.

Lo, they had bread while they were out a-toiling in the sun :

Now they are strolling beggars, for the harvest work is done.

They are the gods of husbandry: they gather in the sheaves,

But when the autumn strips the wood, they're drifting with the leaves.

A Harvest Song

They plow and sow and gather in the glory of the corn;

They know the noon, they know the pitiless rains before the morn;

They know the sweep of furrowed fields that darken in the gloom

A little while their hope on earth, then evermore their tomb.

Two Taverns

I remember how I lay
On a bank a summer day,
Peering into weed and flower:
Watched a poppy all one hour;
Watched it till the air grew chill
In the darkness of the hill;

Till I saw a wild bee dart

Out of the cold to the poppy's heart;

Saw the petals gently spin,

And shut the little lodger in.
Then I took the quiet road
To my own secure abode.

All night long his tavern hung;
Now it rested, now it swung;
I asleep in steadfast tower,
He asleep in stirring flower;
In our hearts the same delight
In the hushes of the night;

Over us both the same dear care
As we slumbered unaware.

The Man under the Stone

When I see a workingman with mouths to feed,

Up, day after day, in the dark before the

dawn,

And coming home, night after night, through the dusk,

Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal,

I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an endless steep.

He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch, Crouched always in the shadow of the rock.

See where he crouches, twisted, cramped,