Poems (Proctor)/Harvest and Liberty
HARVEST AND LIBERTY.Before Election, 1860.
The harvest moon is waning, And under shielding eaves,The wheat lies threshed and garnered, Or heaped in heavy sheaves;And on a thousand prairies, Like forest seas outrolled,The corn stands waiting till the sun Shall turn its green to gold.
Along the fair Ohio The grapes are storing wine,—Catawba, purple Isabel, And fragrant Muscadine;And peach and apple, ripe and red, Drop when the light winds blow,Ripe and red from the laden boughs, Till the grass is heaped below.
O never 'neath Athenian skies To Ceres, garland-crowned,When scarlet poppies wreathed with wheat Her shining tresses bound, Such glad thanksgivings filled the air, Such wild and tuneful glee,As we could bring with shout and song From prairie-land to sea.
But let us put the sickle by, Nor mind the golden sheaves,The purpling grapes upon the vine, The apples 'mid the leaves;For you and I and all of us Have nobler work to-day,That will not brook a backward look, Nor bear a feast's delay.
Before the yellow corn is housed, Or sealed the amber wine,A day will come when every man, Upon a holier shrine,Such gift may lay as ne'er was borne From mine or ocean foamFor Delphi's god, or greater Jove Throned on the hills of Rome.
Not India's gems, nor Persia's pearls, Nor wood of rarest trees,Nor spices from the Orient isles Slow wafted o'er the seas.Our shrine is Liberty's; how clear The wind around it sings!Our gift, the freeman's priceless vote; Our God, the King of kings.
Now who that loves his wife, or child, Or home, or brother man,But in the bright, heroic ranks, That day will swell the van?And strong in love and hope and faith, And treading firm the sod,Up to the patriot's altar go, Beneath the eye of God.
Young men! around whose virgin vote The proudest thoughts entwine;Fathers! who ne'er again may see The moon of harvest shine;And ye who know the heat of life, And bear its toil and fray,O bring your gift, with fervent heart To Freedom's shrine that day!
Let Freedom thrill the poet's song, And be the statesman's care,And speak from sermon and from hymn, And yearn in every prayer.Nay, let it wail in ocean winds, And flash from out the sun,And thunder 'mid the mountain peaks, Until the Work be done!