God sat down with the farmer
When the noontide heat grew harsh.
The One had builded a world that day,
And the other had drained a marsh.
They sat in the cooling shadow
At the porch of the templed wood;
And each looked forth on his handiwork,
And saw that the work was good.
On God’s right hand two cherubs
Bent waiting, winged with fire;
On the farmer’s left his oxen bowed
Deep bosoms marked with mire.
Still clung around the plowshare
The dark, mysterious mold,
Where the furrow it turned had heaved the new
O’er the chill and churlish old.
Jehovah’s face was seen not
By ox or grazing kine;
But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,
Or saw he that look divine?
Was it the wind in passing
That stroked that farmer’s hair?
Or had God’s own hand of wind and flame
Laid benediction there?
Through muffling miles he fancied
Far calls of greeting blew,
Where on sounding plains the lords of war
Hurled down to rear anew.
Glad hail from nation-builders
Crossed faint those dreamland bounds,
Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.
And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.
“There are seven downy meadows
That never before were mown;
There were seven fields of brush and rock
Where now is nor bush nor stone.
There are seven heifers grazing
Where but one could graze before.
O lords of marts--and of broken hearts--
What have you given me more?”
God rose up from the farmer
When the cool of the evening neared;
And the One went forth through the worlds He built,
And the one through the fields he cleared.
The stars outlasting labor
Leaned down o’er the flowering soil;
And all night long o’er His child there leaned
A Toiler more old than toil.
_Yale Review_ _Frederick Erastus Pierce_