POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
HAUNTED REAPING
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.
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