Poems (Van Vorst)/The Song of the Wheat

by Marie Van Vorst

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT I

I sprang from the heart of the earth,
From the brown, still heart
That gives, though it pulseth not,
All things being and birth.
This vegetable mould,
Black, resisting, and cold,
Is pregnant in every part
With essence of life.
Infused with The Spark, my shell—
Pained with the mighty swell
Of being and life that woke—
Travailed: fibres broke.
Green shoots slender,
Powerful, though most tender,
Pushed upward—a crust gave way—
Earth opened . . . and I saw day!

II

Myriad forms
Pure and new as a thought of God,
Rose from the sod,
Sprang into life with me,
A bending sea
Of distant, infinite blue,
From East to West, from South to North,
Bent over us. We, called forth
Up from the heart of the earth,
Shook in the east wind's mirth,
Thrilled to the south wind's kiss.
Rain and dew,
Storm and sun,
Blessed us, made us this,
And we grew.

III

Oh days
In early summer, when all things breathe
With delight in being! Golden haze
Covers valleys and distant heath.
The wind, these times,
Faints with its burden from Southern Climes
Of odours, subtler than balm or myrrh.
Then we stir
And surge like fair seas to and fro.
When through our green blades the light winds sweep,
Between our thin stalks straight and tall,
You may see, a-tremble, like flames that blow,
The Scarlet Flowers of Sleep.
Low down they grow,—
Fine as a film,
Red and soft as Love's lips glow,
Red as jewels the gods let fall.

IV

Oh days,
When the sun, red through the haze,
Burns bronze to gold!
No breeze wakes,
Sleek cows stand in orchard shade;
And the little sound that ebb tide makes
At the foot of the cliffs is low and sweet
As sighs half-breathed, as lips that meet.
In this ripening time
We wait so still, that we scarce are stirred
By the flight of a startled bird
From its nest, in the furrows made.
Summer's power
Changes our hue from royal green
To golden, hour by hour.

V

  Oh days
Full of sweet noises! Songs of birds,
And gentle sound of lowing herds.
When all around—
From farther fields and orchard trees—
Comes the drowsy hum of bees.

VI

  Bend the ear
To our sibilant whispering!
This is the full of the year.
The Golden Mene, when the rich earth bears
In plenty and fulness and mankind shares
In the good of her,
  Oh hear, the wind wakes; and we sing!

VII

  See the forms,
Big and sturdy and strong and brown!
The sinewy arms,
The naked chest, where the shirt falls down,
The blue veins swollen, the sweat of toil,
The sweat of brow and the earth-cast look,
The coarse shoes, red with the furrow's toil,
The knotted hands. . . .
  The Field is the book
These fingers turn, and these eyes pursue.
The sudden hail, the deadly dew,
The blight of the boll and the dry, parched days
Are the lines that mark their tragedies!
  These are the Workers—!
Their hands have made
The great earth fertile from sea to sea.
  Silently
They bend to their labour, knowing not
What they shall reap that their hands have sown!
"Man may not live by bread alone;"
They ask but this, "and receive a stone!"

VIII

From the faint, gray dawn to the late night's shade
The open air is their dwelling-place.
The sweetest and best that their lives have known
Is the mild, soft air in the summer-time,
When they learn the noon by the village chime
And pause to rest for an hour's space.

IX

  Misery,
Is in the hut for the worker there;
What for his eyes to see?—
Children, that dumbly ask for things
He knows not of, nor they know who plead
More than a garment for nakedness,
Or warmth from woe that the winter brings,
Or bread—that, God! is a want indeed!

X

  "Life for life," the Prophet says,
The fulness of days shall come and the reapers reap.
The white blade seethes like a wind, and we
Tremble at death in the blade's cold kiss.
  Distant, infinite blue
From East to West, from South to North,
Bends over us.
  We, called forth
Up from the heart of the earth,
Mother that gave us birth,
Lie on her heart again.
  Sun and dew,
  Wind and rain,
    Pass over us.

XI

  On the bare, brown land,
In level, close-bound sheaves, we stand;
And this is the end,
Till the fine, dry film from the blade 's unfurled
And we go forth,
From East to West, from South to North
  Bread—for the world.