Where a deft cartman, piles the well-cured grass
By armfuls high and higher, till the mass
Rises about his loins, and so conceals
The rails, the cart-beam, and the very wheels;
And, when the cart moves on, with the hay trailing,
It seems like some unwieldy vessel sailing.
But now the cartman rises, and descries
The runner, and “Hold, men! there’s trouble!” cries;
And all his aids, who in great forkfuls carry
To him the hay, do for a moment tarry,
And wipe their streaming brows; and mowers rest
The scythe-back carefully upon the breast,
And whet the edge, as they the plain explore
That Phoebus wings his burning arrows o’er.
Began the rustic messenger straightway,
“Hear men, what our good master bade me say:
“ ‘Cupbearer,’ was his word, ‘upon your track
Across the fields like lightning go you back,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
“ ‘Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!’ ”
Then, fleeter than a goat, the faithful man
O’er the rich, madder-growing85 hillocks ran—
Althen’s bequest—and saw on every hand
The gold of perfect ripeness tinge the land,
And centaury-starred fields, and ploughmen bent
Above their ploughs and on their mules intent,
And earth, awakened from her winter-sleep,
And shapeless clods upturned from furrows deep,
And wagtails frisking o’er; and yet again,
“Hearken to what our master saith, good men!
“ ‘Cupbearer,’ was his word, ‘upon your track
Across the fields like lightning go you back,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!’ ”
Then the stout runner, fleeter than the goats,
Dashed through the pieces waving with wild-oats,
Fosses o’erleaped with meadow-flowers bright,
And in great yellow wheat-fields passed from sight,
Where reapers forty, sickle each in hand,
Like a devouring fire fall on the land,
And strip her mantle rich and odorous
From off her breast, and, ever gaining thus
As wolves upon their prey, rob, hour by hour,
Earth of her gold, and summer of her flower;
While in the wake of each, in ordered line,
Falls the loose grain, like tendrils of the vine.
And the sheaf-binders, ever on the watch,
The dropping wheat in handfuls deftly catch,
And underneath the arm the same bestow
Until, so gathering, they have enow;
When, pressing with the knee, they tightly bind,
And lastly fling the perfect sheaf behind.
Twinkle the sickles keen like swarming bees,
Or laughing ripple upon sunny seas
Where flounders are at play. Erect and tall,
With rough beards blent, in heaps pyramidal,
The sheaves by hundreds rise. The plain afar
Shows like a tented camp in days of war;
Even like that which once arose upon
Our own Beaucaire, in days how long withdrawn!
When came a host of terrible invaders,
The great Simon, and all the French crusaders,
Led by a legate, and in fierce advance
Count Raymond slaughtered and laid waste Provence.
And here, with gleanings falling from her fingers,
Full many a merry gleaner strays and lingers;
Or in the warm lea of the stacks of corn,
Or ’mid the canes,86 drops languidly, o’erborne
By some long look, that e’en bewilders her,
Because Love also is a harvester.
And yet again the master’s word—“Go back
Like lightning, cupbearer, upon your track,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!”
Then fleeter than a goat sped on his way
The faithful soul, straight through the olives gray,
On, on, like a north-eastern gale descending
Upon the vineyards, and the branches rending,
Until, away in Crau, the waste, the lonely,
Behold him, where the partridge whirreth only;
And, still remote, discovers he the flocks
Tranquilly lying under the dwarf-oaks,
And the chief-shepherd, with his helpers young,
For noontide rest about the heather flung,
And little wagtails hopping at their ease
O’er sheep that ruminate unmoved by these.
And slowly, slowly sailing o’er the sea
Diaphanous vapours, light and white, sees he,
And deems that up in heaven some fair saint,
Gliding too near the sun, is stricken faint
On the aerial heights, and hath let fall
Her convent-veil. And still the herald’s call:—
“Hark, shepherds, to the master’s word—‘Go back
Like lightning, cupbearer, upon your track,
And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all
Quit ploughs and scythes, the reapers too let fall
Their sickles, and the shepherds instantly
Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!’ ”
Then the scythes rested and the ploughs were stayed,
The forty highland reapers each his blade
Let fall, and rushed as bees on new-found wings
Forsake the hive, begin their wanderings,
And, by the din of clanging cymbals led,
Gather them to a pine. So also fled
The labourers one and all; the wagoners,
And they who tended them; the rick-builders,
Gleaners, and shepherds, and of sheaves the heapers,
Binders of sheaves, rakers, mowers, and reapers,
Mustered them at the homestead. There, heart-sore
And silent, on the grass-grown treading-floor,
The master and his wife sat down to bide
The coming of the hands; who, as they hied
Thither, much marvelled at the strange behest
So calling them from toil, and who addrest
These words unto old Ramoun, drawing near:
“Thou sentest for us, master. We are here.”
Then Ramoun raised his head, and thus replied;
“The great storm alway comes at harvest-tide.
However well-advised, as we advance
We must, poor souls, all stumble on mischance:
I cannot say it plainer. Friends, I pray,
Let each tell what he knows, without delay!”
Lauren de Gout came forward first. Now he
Had failed no single year since infancy
His quivered sickle from the hills to bring
Down into Arles when ears were yellowing.
Brown as a church-stone, he, with weather-stain,
Or ancient rock the sea-waves charge in vain.
The sun might scorch, the northwest wind might roar,
But this old king of reapers evermore
Was first at work. And now with him there came
Seven rough and stalwart boys who bore his name.
Him with one voice the harvesters did make
Their chief, and justly: therefore thus he spake:
“If it be true that, when the dawning sky
Is ruddy, there is rain or snow close by,
Then what I saw this very morn, my master,
Presageth surely sorrow and disaster.
So may God stay the earthquake! But as night
Fled westward, followed by the early light,
“And wet with dew as ever, I the men
First summoned briskly to their toil again,
And then myself, my sleeves uprolling gayly,
Bent me to mine own task, as I do daily;
But at the
