Two Harvests

BLOSSOM and fruit no man could count or hoard;
Seasons, their laws forgot, in riot haste
Lavishing yield on yield in madman’s waste ;
No tropic, with its centuries’ heat outpoured
In centuries of summers, ever stored
Such harvest.

Had the earth her sole pearl placed
In wine of sun to melt, — one blissful taste
To drain her dead, — it had not fuller dowered
This harvest!

She who smiling goes, a queen,
Reaping with alabaster arms and hands
The fruits and flowers of these magic lands,
With idle, satiate intervals between, —
Oh, what to her do laws of harvest mean ?
Joy passes by her, where she laden stands!

A parched and arid land, all colorless,
Than desert drearier, than rock more stern,
Spring could not find, nor any summer learn
The secret to redeem this wilderness.

Harsh winds sweep through with icy storm and stress,
Fierce, lurid suns shine but to blight and burn,
And streams rise, pallid, but to flee and turn :
Who soweth here waits miracle to bless
The harvest!

She who smiling goes, a quee_,
Seeking with hidden tears and tireless hands,
To win a fruitage from these barren lands, —
She knoweth what the laws of harvest mean !
Blades spring, flowers bloom, by all but her unseen;
Joy’s halo crowns her, where she patient stands!