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.
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 the 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, misshapen!
He lifts for their life;
The veins knot and darken—
Blood surges into his face....
Now he loses—now he wins—
Now he loses—loses—(God of my soul!)
He digs his feet into the earth—
There’s a moment of terrified effort.
Will the huge stone break his hold,
And crush him as it plunges to the gulf?
The silent struggle goes on and on,
Like two contending in a dream.
Song to the Divine Mother[A]
Come, Mighty Mother, from the bright abode,
Lift the low heavens and hush the Earth again;
Come when the moon throws down a shining road
Across the sea—come back to weary men.
But if the moon throws out across the sea
Too dim a light, too wavering a way,
Come when the sunset paves a path for Thee
Across the waters fading into gray.
Dead nations saw Thee dimly in release—
In Aphrodite rising from the foam:
Some glimmer of Thy beauty was on Greece,
Some trembling of Thy passion was on Rome.