Poems (Proctor)/Harvest and Liberty

by Edna Dean Proctor

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 foam
For 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!