Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 6 (April-September 1915).djvu/231

Haunted Reaping My father reaps six feet before
 * With hairy arms as hard as steel.

I hear the corn as oft of yore
 * Before his whirlngwhirling [sic] sickle reel

And, God, what wild, mad horrors steal!—
 * Bidding me take too long a stride,

And drive my sickle in his aide,
 * And grind his face beneath my heel.

I dread this brooding, awful morn
 * With its haunted hush dismaying—

It seems as though pale souls newborn
 * Our curved wet blades were slaying.

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.

My father's beard is grizzled gray—
 * It trails like mist in heavy wind.

He was three-score yesterday,
 * And yet I reap six feet behind.

Lean he is, and bent, and lined,
 * And he has held me many years;

And still I toil in hate and tears,
 * And still he swears that he is kind.

Ah, God, will morning never break?
 * I know he is old and loving,