Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/25

 ERNEST K. CHALLENGER

The Harvest

HADOWLESS lies the land

Under the sun,

Only the poplars stand

With moveless boughs in the heat

That broods o'er the blackened wheat

And the ground so hardly won.

No other tree in the waste.

They only stand

Where the straight white road is traced

Athwart the land.

And ever under the sky

Do the slow-winged birds go by—

The slow black birds of prey

That wait but the close of day

For the night to bring them food.

The curse of the heat is here,

And the curse of blood.

Cold-lipped, and with eyes of fear,

'Neath the sun's flood 21