By Thomas Buchanan Read
The road was lone; the grass was dank
With night-dews on the briery bank
Whereon a weary reaper sank.
His garb was old; his visage tanned;
The rusty sickle in his hand
Could find no work in all the land.
He saw the evening’s chilly star
Above his native vale afar;
A moment on the horizon’s bar
It hung, then sank, as with a sigh;
And there the crescent moon went by,
An empty sickle down the sky.
To soothe his pain, Sleep’s tender palm
Laid on his brow its touch of balm;
His brain received the slumberous calm;
And soon that angel without name,
Her robe a dream, her face the same,
The giver of sweet visions came.
She touched his eyes; no longer sealed,
They saw a troop of reapers wield
Their swift blades in a ripened field.
At each thrust of their snowy sleeves
A thrill ran through the future sheaves
Rustling like rain on forest leaves.
They were not brawny men who bowed,
With harvest voices rough and loud,
But spirits, moving as a cloud.
Like little lightnings in their hold,
The silver sickles manifold
Slid musically through the gold.
O, bid the morning stars combine
To match the chorus clear and fine,
That rippled lightly down the line,—
A cadence of celestial rhyme,
The language of that cloudless clime,
To which their shining hands kept time!
Behind them lay the gleaming rows,
Like those long clouds the sunset shows
On amber meadows of repose;
But, like a wind, the binders bright
Soon followed in their mirthful might,
And swept them into sheaves of light.
Doubling the splendor of the plain,
There rolled the great celestial wain,
To gather in the fallen grain.
Its frame was built of golden bars;
Its glowing wheels were lit with stars;
The royal Harvest’s car of cars.
The snowy yoke that drew the load,
On gleaming hoofs of silver trode;
And music was its only goad.
To no command of word or beck
It moved, and felt no other check
Than one white arm laid on the neck,—
The neck, whose light was overwound
With bells of lilies, ringing round
Their odors till the air was drowned:
The starry foreheads meekly borne,
With garlands looped from horn to horn,
Shone like the many-colored morn.
The field was cleared. Home went the bands,
Like children, linking happy hands,
While singing through their father’s lands;
Or, arms about each other thrown,
With amber tresses backward blown,
They moved as they were music’s own.
The vision brightening more and more,
He saw the garner’s glowing door,
And sheaves, like sunshine, strew the floor,—
The floor was jasper,—golden flails,
Swift-sailing as a whirlwind sails,
Throbbed mellow music down the vales.
He saw the mansion,—all repose,—
Great corridors and porticos,
Propped with the columns, shining rows;
And these—for beauty was the rule—
The polished pavements, hard and cool,
Redoubled, like a crystal pool.
And there the odorous feast was spread;
The fruity fragrance widely shed
Seemed to the floating music wed.
Seven angels, like the Pleiad seven,
Their lips to silver clarions given,
Blew welcome round the walls of heaven.
In skyey garments, silky thin,
The glad retainers floated in
A thousand forms, and yet no din:
And from the visage of the Lord,
Like splendor from the Orient poured,
A smile illumined all the board.
Far flew the music’s circling sound;
Then floated back, with soft rebound,
To join, nor mar, the converse round,
Sweet notes, that, melting, still increased,
Such as ne’er cheered the bridal feast
Of king in the enchanted East.
Did any great door ope or close,
It seemed the birth-time of repose,
The faint sound died where it arose;
And they who passed from door to door;
Their soft feet on the polished floor
Met their soft shadows,—nothing more.
Then once again the groups were drawn
Through corridors, or down the lawn,
Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn.
Where countless fountains leapt alway,
Veiling their silver heights in spray,
The choral people held their way.
There, midst the brightest, brightly shone
Dear forms he loved in years agone,—
The earliest loved,—the earliest flown.
He heard a mother’s sainted tongue,
A sister’s voice, who vanished young,
While one still dearer sweetly sung!
No further might the scene unfold;
The gazer’s voice could not withhold;
The very rapture made him bold:
He cried aloud, with claspÉd hands,
“O happy fields! O happy bands!
Who reap the never-failing lands.
“Oh master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!
“A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest’s yellow car;
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to thee!”
At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace;
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.
A poem like the preceding abounds in beautiful word pictures, which add to the charm of the imaginary incident which is related.
Here is the first: It is a country road in the harvest season. On one side, stretching away into the dim distance, lie fields already reaped; upon the other, a bank, covered with briery vines, rises steeply into the darkness. The evening star lies close to the horizon, and in the sky the cold crescent moon hangs like an empty sickle. In the grass under the bank, with night dews thickly gathered upon him, lies a poor and weary reaper. His torn clothes, old and ill-kept, his tanned face, slender figure, and more than all else the rusty sickle in his hand, show that he has been long without work, and has suffered in poverty.
The next four scenes are from the reaper’s dream:
1. It is a busy afternoon, and in a field of ripening grain reapers are busy wielding their sickles, but they are not the strong men who talk with loud, rough voices and bind the sheaves with joke and laughter; they are gentle spirits moving like clouds, and their sickles seem like little strokes of lightning as they slide musically through the golden grain. Their shining hands keep time to a beautiful song, and often the reapers glance across the gleaming rows of grain into the rich red of the sunset. The binders follow the reapers and place the sheaves in gleaming rows, while behind them follows the great wagon gathering in the fallen grain,—a wagon not of earth, but built of gold. Beautiful cattle draw the wain, cattle that tread on silver hoofs and move without other command than sweet music, or the soft touch of a white-armed angel. Around the necks of the cattle are white lilies, and from the horns droop garlands of many-colored flowers, freshly picked from the dewy grass.
2. A jasper floor on which the grain lies like sunshine, and where golden flails, falling swiftly, beat out the grain to mellow music, gleams with increasing brightness.
3. The great mansion shines with its long corridors, its gleaming porticos and polished pavement, all beautiful and hard and cool. Inside is spread a fragrant feast to which seven angels sing invitation with their silver clarions. Softly the invited guests float in, a multitude in number, but silently as the stars move in heaven. Sweet music floats around the beautiful room, and smiling faces nod around the board. Doors are opened and closed without sound, and the feet of the servants on the polished floor give no more sound than falling shadows.
4. The groups of angel guests are gathered like flowers upon the lawn where countless fountains play, and among them, moving here and there, are the forms of the loved ones who have passed away before him. His mother, his sister, and one still dearer than either, sing sweetly and walk among fragrant flowers more beautiful than his fancy ever painted.
The last scene is the same as the first, except that it is a cold, chilly morning instead of a damp evening. Some reapers coming near see lying under the briers the poor old reaper with his upturned face, peaceful and quiet, now in death, but bearing the look of an answered prayer.
