Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 6 (April-September 1915).djvu/230

POETRY: A Magazine of Verse

Out we go in the dusk of morn
 * Over the hills to the reaping.

Our sickles crash on the golden corn
 * When the rest of earth is sleeping.

Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
 * Gathering in and striking free,

Gripping the sheaf with the sickle and knee
 * And laying it down for the tying.

The dim, dark hills are all around,
 * The silence breeds a sullen dread,

Our sickle strokes like shrieks resound
 * In chambers of the murdered dead.

But one dull star stays overhead,
 * The waning moon seems all awry.

The dying night is loth to die
 * Though in the east the mists are red.

Over the stubble chill winds creep
 * Like breaths from a dead world blowing,

God! it is awesome so to reap
 * With such strange fancies growing.

Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
 * Gathering in and striking free,

Gripping the sheaf with sickle and knee,
 * And laying it down for the tying.