Poems (Hoffman)/The Fields
THE FIELDS
Tossing billows of wheat and oatsRolling in music that swells and floats,Rippling in many-hued waves of flowers—I love them, I love them, these fields of ours!They're a-wing with birds, they're a-buzz with bees,They are shaded in nooks by old forest trees,They are torn by the zigzag creek that singsAs she speeds away on her dripping wingsFrom her plunge in the depths of her mountain springs.
When the flowers of Spring like the fogs are fedTo the earth, the air and the clouds o'erhead,When quickly before the advancing foeLike a fallen army the grain lies low,That Famine may never dare scale the fenceEach Autumn comes Ceres to pitch her tents,Takes captive the whispering spies of droughtAnd sends old Famine retreating south;For though still a scepter the old foe wieldsHe never has conquered these valley fields;She piles up the wide lying sheaves of grain'Till they look like Philistines' tents on the plain,While like winged vessels that sail the mainThe larks skim over the waves of grain,While the laughing raindrop and sunbeam showersAre pouring their floods on the field of flowers.Whatever the wealth that the glad earth yieldsI love them, I love them, the fields, the fields!
The iron-horse speeding his noisy wayScents the fragrant air with his piercing neigh,And the rumble and roar of the passing trainIs heard each day from the fields of grain.Go take the lark from his lowly nestWith his wings half-fledged and the down on his breast, Make his prison a palace with sumptuous fare,Be the bars of gold, that confine him there;'Midst the noise and dust of the city streetHe may caro! his notes so high and sweet,But his golden breast-plate a secret shields,He has not forgotten the waving fields.