Along the baulk the grasses drenched in dews
Soak through the morning gleaners' clumsy shoes,
And cloying cobwebs trammel their brown cheeks
While from the shouldering sun the dewfog reeks.
Then soon begun, on ground where yesterday
The rakers' warning-sheaf forbade their way,
Hard clucking dames in great white hoods make haste
To cram their lap-bags with the barley waste,
Scrambling as if a thousand were but one,
Careless of stabbing thistles. Now the sun
Gulps up the dew and dries the stubs, and scores
Of tiny people trundle out of doors
Among the stiff stalks, where the scratched hands
Red ants and blackamoors and such as fly;
Tunbellied, too, with legs a finger long,
The spider harvestman; the churlish, strong
Black scorpion, prickled earwig, and that mite
Who shuts up like a leaden shot in fright
And lies for dead. And still before the rout
The young rats and the field mice whisk about
And from the trod whisp out the leveret darts
Bawled at by boys that pass with blundering carts
Top-heavy to the red-tiled barns. And still
The children feed their cornsacks with goodwill,
And farm wives ever faster stoop and flounce.
The hawk drops down a plummet's speed to pounce
The nibbling mouse or resting lark away,
The lost mole tries to pierce the mattocked clay
In agony and terror of the sun.
The dinner hour and its grudged leisure won,
All sit below the pollards on the dykes,
Rasped with the twinge of creeping barley spikes:
Sweet beyond telling now the small beer goes
From the hooped hardwood bottles, the wasp knows,
And even hornets whizz from the eaten ash--
Then crusts are dropt and switches snatched to slash,
While, safe in shadow of the apron thrown
Aside the bush which years before was grown
To snap the poacher's nets, the baby sleeps.
Now toil returns, in red-hot fluttering light,
And far afield the weary rabble creeps,
Oft clutching blind wheat black among the white,
That smutches where it touches quick as soot--Oft
gaping where the landrail seems afoot,
Who with such magic throws his baffling speech,
Far off he sounds when scarce beyond arm's reach.
Mongrels are left to mind the morning's gain,
But squinting knaves can slouch to steal the grain;
Now close the farm the fields are gleaned agen,
Where the boy droves the turkey and white hen
To pick the shelled sweet corn; their hue and cry
Answers the gleaners' gabble, and sows trudge
With little pigs to play and rootle there
And all the fields are full of din and blare.
So steals the time past, so they glean and gloat;
The hobby-horses whir, the moth's dust coat
Blends with the stubble, scarlet soldiers fly
In airy pleasure; but the gleaners' eye
Sees little but their spoil, or robin flower
Ever on tenterhooks to shun the shower,
Their weather-prophet never known astray;
When he folds up, then toward the hedge glean they.
But now the dragon of the sky droops, pales,
And wandering in the wet grey western vales,
Stumbles, and passes, and the gleaning's done.
The farmer, with fat hares slung on his gun,
Gives folk goodnight as down the ruts they pull
The creaking two-wheeled hand carts bursting full,
And whimpering children cease their teasing squalls,
While left alone the supping partridge calls--
Till all at home is stacked from mischief's way
To thrash and dress the first wild, windy day,
And each good wife crowns weariness with pride,
With such small riches more than satisfied.