Classic Poem

I

With a rosy flame the dawn burns on high, but the fog still broods over the face of the earth;
Till the day has caught the fire of the sun, and rolled up the mists higher than the tops of the hills,
And has pressed them into a black cloud. The black cloud has begun to knit its brows,—
Has begun to knit its brows, as if reflecting, as though musing upon the place of its birth,
As though remembering how the wild winds will drive it before them across the face of the wide world.
Then it arms itself with the hurricane and the thunderbolt, with the lightning's flash and the bow of the cloud.
It has taken up arms, and flown abroad, and struck its stroke, and poured itself forth
In a torrent of tears, in a flood of rain, over the copious bosom of the earth.

II

Now from heaven's heights the dear sun looks down. The earth a plenteous draught has drunk.
On their corn-fields and gardens, and meadows green, the rustic folk cannot gaze enough.
For the grace of God these rustic folk have waited long with trembling and prayer.
Together with the spring there have come to life the secret thoughts of their quiet minds.
Thought the first: To pour into sacks the grain in the bins, and to set their carts in order.
Thought the second: Forth from the village by night to drive their line of carts.
Thought the third—When of this they thought, to God the Lord arose the prayers.
With early dawn have they gone afield. There in handfuls heaped each scatters the grain, furrows the soil with the ploughshare's blade, or rips it across with the harrow's tooth.

III

I will go and gaze with gladdened eye at what God has sent to men for their toil.
Above my waist the large-grained rye rises, then dreamily bends well nigh to the ground.
On every side the corn, guest sent by God, greets with a smile the joyful day.
Over it the breeze floats lustrously, streaming this way and that a wave of gold.
Now in whole families the peasants commence their harvest, cutting close to the roots the stalks of the lofty rye.
Into close-packed mows are the sheaves collected; from the lines of carts sounds music all the night long.
On every side do the stacks erect their heads in the barn yards,—taking up much room, like nobles of yore in their robes of state.

IV

The dear sun sees that the harvest is done; so colder gleam his last autumnal rays.
But with warm light glows the peasant's taper—burning before the pictured form of the Mother of God.