e furrow's even trace
For those whose toiling hands uprear
The roof-trees of our swarming race,
By grove and plain, by stream and mere;
Who forth, from crowded city, lead
The lengthening street, and overlay
Green orchard-plot and grassy mead
With pavement of the murmuring way.
Cast, with full hands the harvest cast,
For the brave men that climb the mast,
When to the billow and the blast
It swings and stoops, with fearful strain,
And bind the fluttering mainsail fast,
Till the tossed bark shall sit, again,
Safe as a sea-bird on the main.

V.

Fling wide the grain for those who throw
The clanking shuttle to and fro,
In the long row of humming rooms,
And into ponderous masses wind
The web that, from a thousand looms,
Comes forth to clothe mankind.
Strew, with free sweep, the grain for them,
By whom the busy thread
Along the garment's even hem
And winding seam is led;
A pallid sisterhood, that keep
The lonely lamp alight,
In strife with weariness and sleep,
Beyond the middle night.
Large part be theirs in what the year
Shall ripen for the reaper here.

VI.

Still, strew, with joyous hand, the wheat
On the soft mould beneath our feet,
For even now I seem
To hear a sound that lightly rings
From murmuring harp and viol's strings,
As in a summer dream.
The welcome of the wedding-guest,
The bridegroom's look of bashful pride,
The faint smile of the pallid bride,
And bridemaid's blush at matron's jest,
And dance and song and generous dower,
Are in the shining grains we shower.

VII.

Scatter the wheat for shipwrecked men,
Who, hunger-worn, rejoice again
In the sweet safety of the shore,
And wanderers, lost in woodlands drear,
Whose pulses bound with joy to hear
The herd's light bell once more.
Freely the golden spray be shed
For him whose heart, when night comes down
On the close alleys of the town,
Is faint for lack of bread.
In chill roof-chambers, bleak and bare,
Or the damp cellar's stifling air,
She who now sees, in mute despair,
Her children pine for food,
Shall feel the dews of gladness start
To lids long tearless, and shall part
The sweet loaf with a grateful heart,
Among her thin pale brood.
Dear, kindly Earth, whose breast we till!
Oh, for thy famished children, fill,
Where'er the sower walks,