Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/256

POEMS OF GREECE "You with a—yes, with a flute, and a rose, or, maybe, an apple;

I, with new Amyclæan shoes, and a robe in the fashion.

"Graceful Bombýcê, your feet are pretty as dice that twinkle;

Soft is your voice; but your manner,—I have no words to express it!"

(Sings.)

"O Dêmêter, abounding in fruit and ears of the harvest,

Well may this field be worked and yield a crop beyond measure!

"Hard, bind hard, ye binders, the sheaves, lest ever a passer

Say, 'These men are poor sticks, and their pay is cash out of pocket.'

"Toward the north-wind let your swath of grain in the cutting

Look, or else to the west, for thus the ear will grow fuller.

"Threshers, threshing the corn, should shun the slumbers of noonday;

That is the very hour when the chaff flies off from the wheat-stalk.

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