OVER the twilight field, The overflowing field,--Over the glimmering field, And bleeding furrows with their sodden yield Of sheaves that still did writhe, After the scythe;The teeming field and darkly overstrewn With all the garnered fulness of that noon--Two looked upon each other.
One was a Woman men called their mother;
And one, the Harvest-Moon.
And one, the Harvest-Moon, Who stood, who gazed On those unquiet gleanings where they bled;Till the lone Woman said:
"But we were crazed . . .
We should laugh now together, I and you, We two.
You, for your dreaming it was worth A star's while to look on and light the Earth;And I, forever telling to my mind, Glory it was, and gladness, to give birth To humankind!
Yes, I, that ever thought it not amiss To give the breath to men, For men to slay again:
Lording it over anguish but to give My life that men might live For this.
You will be laughing now, remembering I called you once Dead World, and barren thing,Yes, so we named you then, You, far more wise Than to give life to men."Over the field, that there Gave back the skies A shattered upward stare >From blank white eyes,--Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune Of throbbing clay, but dumb and quiet soon, She looked; and went her way--The Harvest-Moon.
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEAODY
