He needs must leave the trapping and the chase, <br /> For mating game his arrows ne'er despoil, <br />And from the hunter's heaven turn his face, <br /> To wring some promise from the dormant soil. <br /> <br />He needs must leave the lodge that wintered him, <br /> The enervating fires, the blanket bed-- <br />The women's dulcet voices, for the grim <br /> Realities of labouring for bread. <br /> <br />So goes he forth beneath the planter's moon <br /> With sack of seed that pledges large increase, <br />His simple pagan faith knows night and noon, <br /> Heat, cold, seedtime and harvest shall not cease. <br /> <br />And yielding to his needs, this honest sod, <br /> Brown as the hand that tills it, moist with rain, <br />Teeming with ripe fulfilment, true as God, <br /> With fostering richness, mothers every grain.<br /><br />Emily Pauline Johnson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-indian-corn-planter/
