Classic Poem

 The night the century ebbed out, all worn with work and sin,
The night a twentieth century, all fresh with hope, came in,
The children watched, the evening long, the midnight clock to see,
And to wish to one another “A Happy Century!”
They climbed upon my knee, and they tumbled on the floor;
And Bob and Nell came begging me for stories of the War.

 But I told Nell that I would tell no tales but tales of peace,—
God grant that for a hundred years the tales of war might cease!
I told them I would tell them of the blessed Harvest Store,
Of the year in which God fed men as they ne'er were fed before;
For till that year of matchless cheer, since suns or worlds were made,
Never sent land to other lands such gift of Daily Bread!

 The War was done, and men began to live in peaceful ways,
For thirteen years of hopes and fears, dark nights and joyful days.
If wealth would slip, if wit would trip, and neither would avail,
“Lo! the seed-time and the harvest,” saith the Lord, “shall never fail.”
And to all change of ups and downs, to every hope and fear,
To men's amaze came round the days of the Great Harvest Year,
When God's command bade all the land join heart and soul and mind,
And health and wealth, and hand and land, for feeding half mankind.

 So hot the noons of ripe July that men took day for sleep,
And when the night shone clear and bright, they took their time to reap;
Nor can the men cut all the grain when hungry worlds are fed,
So the ready Ruths and Orpahs are gleaning in their stead.
All through the heated summer day the Kansas maidens slept,
All through the night, with laughter light, their moonlight vigil kept;
From set of sun the kindly moon until the break of day
Watched o'er their lightsome harvest-work, and cheered them on their way.
They drove their willing horses down, they drove them up again,
While “click, click, click,” the rattling knives cut off the heavy grain;
Before it falls, around the straw the waiting wires wind,
And the well-ordered sheaves are left in still array behind.
So laughing girls the harvest reap, all chattering the while,
While “click, click, click,” the shears keep their chorus, mile by mile;
And lazy Morning blushes when she sees the harvest stands
In ordered files, those miles on miles, to feed the hungry lands.

 Far in the South, from day to day, a living tide swept forth,
As, wave on wave, the herds of kine flowed slowly to the North.
Great broad-horned oxen, tender-eyed, and such as Juno loved,
In troops no man could number, across the prairie moved.
Behind, along their wavy line, the brown rancheros rode,
From east to west, from west to east, as North the column flowed,
To keep the host compact and close from morn to setting sun,
Nor on the way leave one estray, as the great tide poured on.
A fair-haired Saxon boy beside commanded the array,
And as it flowed along the road, I heard the stripling say,
“'Tis God's command these beeves shall stand upon the Cheviot Hills,
The land to feed where rippling Tweed the lowland dews distils;”
So the great herd flows Northward, as the All-Father wills.

 Far in the North the winter's gales blew sharply from northwest,
And locked the lakes and rivers, hard in their icy rest.
I saw men scrape the crystal lakes to clear them from the snow,
I saw them drive in long straight lines the iceploughs to and fro;
The blocks of amethyst they slid up to the sheltering shed
By the long lines of ready rail; and as they worked they said,
“Drive close the blocks, nor leave a chink between for breath of air;
Not winter's wind nor summer's sun may ever enter there,
But square and dry and hard and smooth the ice must ready be,
When summer suns are blazing, for its journey to the sea,
To pack the meat and keep it sweet, as the good God commands,
To feed his hungry children in so many waiting lands.”

 And far away from Northern ice and drifts of crystal snows,
On the rich coast where deep and red the Mississippi flows,
When the thick sugar-canes were ripe beneath the autumn sun
We listened for the earliest cock to tell of day begun.
In the cool sugar-house I slept upon my pallet bed,
Where Pierre Milhet, my princely host, had called his men, and said,
“At morning's call be ready all to meet here at the mill,
That not one drop may rest or stop before the vats we fill.
What man will be the first at dawn from lazy sleep to rise,
When the first gray of daybreak pales in the eastern skies,
What man will first his load of cane fling down before the door,
For that man's wife I give as prize this old-time louis d'or.”
And all day long the hard-pressed mules the heaps of ripened cane
Brought swiftly to the mill, and then rushed back to bring again,
That all day long the rollers the fresh supply might grind,
Nor should one stalk be left not gleaned on the intervale behind.
So black and white, with main and might, are all united here,
Lest the harvest lack its sweets in God's Great Harvest Year.

 The boys and girls the orchards thronged in those October days
Where the golden sun shone hotly down athwart the purple haze.
It warmed the piles of ruddy fruit which lay beneath the trees,
From which the apples, red and gold, fell down with every breeze.
The smallest boy would creep along to clasp the farthest bough,
And throw the highest pippin to some favored girl below.
The sound hard fruit with care we chose, we wiped them clean and dry,
While in the refuse heaps, unused, we let the others lie.
For pigs and cows and oxen those; for other lands were these,
And only what was hard and sound should sail across the seas.
Then, as the sun went down too soon, we piled the open crates,
And dragged them full where cellar cool threw wide its waiting gates,
So that the air which circled there was cold, but not too cold,
To keep for Eastern rivalry our Western fruit of gold.
And as old Evans thoughtful stood, and watched the boys that day,
I stood so near that I could hear the grim old Shaker say,
“Shame on our Yankee orchards, if the fruit should not be good,
The year the land at God's command sends half the world its food!”

 I saw what wealth untold of corn our gracious God bestowed,
As for one autumn day I sped down the Rock River Road.
All night we slept; but still we kept our tireless way till morn,
And with the light, on left and right still stretched those shocks of corn.
A hundred thousand girls that year wore their engagement ring,
And a hundred thousand others before another spring;
But when the husking parties came, with all their frolic play,
Those “corn-fed maidens” might have kissed and kissed and kissed all day,
And although they kissed the boys but once for every thousandth ear,
They would not kiss for half the corn that blessed harvest year.
Yet buxom girls and hearty boys were ready, as they could,
To send love's blessing with the trains that took the world its food.
For since God smiled upon his child, in comfort or in care,
Was never yet such answer made to all his children's prayer.

 A northeast gale, with snow and hail, bore down upon the sea;
With heavy rolls, beneath bare poles, we drifted to the lee.
When morning broke, the skipper spoke, and never sailor shirked,
But with a will, though cold and chill, from morn to night we worked.
Off in the spray the livelong day our spinning lines we threw,
And on each hook a struggling fish back to the deck we drew.
I know I looked to windward once, but the old man scowled, and said,
“Let no man flinch, nor give an inch, before his stent is made.
We've nothing for it, shipmates, but to heave the lines and pull,
Till each man's share has made the fare, and every cask is full.
This is no year for half a fare, for God this year decreed
That the forty States their hungry mates in all the lands shall feed.”

 No interval nor hind'rance the long procession break
Of the legion which the swine-herds drive by the City of the Lake.
Up death's long way it moves all day, unconscious of its fate,
As swine with boars contending hurry forward to the gate.
Thousands behind unwary crowd upon their leaders' tracks,
Nor hesitate nor falter as they near the headsman's axe.
For me, I stood away from blood and the silent stroke of death,
Where they packed the meat for the world to eat, in the basement crypt beneath.
I watched the task, as cask by cask was rolled by stalwart men,
And car on car to travel far was added to the train;
Nor ceased it then, but train on train pushed forth upon the rail,
Lest in some land the day's demand for daily food should fail.
For there shall not be a ship on the sea, to sail or far or near,
But the shipmates shall bless the plenteousness of the Great Harvest Year.

 From last year's rice the black men the heaviest clusters choose,
And cull and thresh from every head the finest seed for use.
They beat it clean, they clayed it well, and when the field was sowed,
Up slid the sluice, and o'er the lands rushed in the waiting flood,
And then, without a ripple, above the trenches stood.
Soon through the glassy waters shot up the needles green,
With not a tare nor “volunteer” nor choking weed between.
Then month by month the joints grew up, so long and strong and high,
That the tall men who hoed them last were hidden from the sky.
But all the same, when harvest came, their sickles cut them low,
And they left the heads to ripen on the stubble patch below.
From field to flats, in flats to barns, they bear the rice, until
To thresh and beat, and clean and clear, they leave it at the mill.
The yellow husk is torn away, and the waiting casks receive
The stream of ice-white jewels from the great iron sieve.
So the black man's care sends out his share, for he knows that God has said
That his people here in his Harvest Year shall send his world its bread.

 While fields were bright with summer light, and heaven was all ablaze,
O'er the broad Mohawk pastures I saw the cattle graze.
At early day they take their way, when cheerful morning warns,
And slowly leave the shelter of the hospitable barns.
The widow's son drew all the milk which the crowded bag would yield,
And sent his pretty Durham to her breakfast in the field.
One portion then for the children's bowls the urchin set away,
One part he set for cream for the next churning-day;
But there was left enough for one little can beside,
And with this the thrifty shaver to the great cheese factory hied.
His milk was measured with the rest, and poured into the stream,
And as he turned away he met Van Antwerp's stately team,
Which bore a hundred gallons from the milking of that day,
And this was poured to swell the hoard fed by that milky way.
The snowy curd is fitly stirred; the cruel presses squeeze
Until the last weak drop has passed, and lo, the solid cheese!
In Yorkshire mill, on Snowdon's hill, men eat it with their bread,
Nor think nor ask of the distant task of the boy by whom they're fed.
But when autumn's done the widow's son stands at Van Antwerp's side,
And takes in his hand his dividend paid for the milky tide.

 So South and North the food send forth to meet the nations' need;
So black and white, with main and might, the hungry peoples feed.
Since God bade man subdue the earth, and harvest-time began,
Never in any land has earth been so subdued by man.

 Praise God for wheat, so white and sweet of which to make our bread!
Praise God for yellow corn, with which his waiting world is fed!
Praise God for fish and flesh and fowl, he gave to man for food!
Praise God for every creature which he made, and called it good!
Praise God for winter's store of ice! Praise God for summer's heat!
Praise God for fruit-tree bearing seed; “to you it is for meat”!
Praise God for all the bounty by which the world is fed!
Praise God his children all, to whom he gives their daily bread!