As o'er his furrowed fields which lie <br />Beneath a coldly dropping sky, <br />Yet chill with winter's melted snow, <br />The husbandman goes forth to sow, <br />Thus, Freedom, on the bitter blast <br />The ventures of thy seed we cast, <br />And trust to warmer sun and rain <br />To swell the germs and fill the grain. <br />Who calls thy glorious service hard? <br />Who deems it not its own reward? <br />Who, for its trials, counts it less <br />A cause of praise and thankfulness? <br />It may not be our lot to wield <br />The sickle in the ripened field; <br />Nor ours to hear, on summer eves, <br />The reaper's song among the sheaves. <br />Yet where our duty's task is wrought <br />In unison with God's great thought, <br />The near and future blend in one, <br />And whatsoe'er is willed, is done! <br />And ours the grateful service whence <br />Comes day by day the recompense; <br />The hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, <br />The fountain and the noonday shade. <br />And were this life the utmost span, <br />The only end and aim of man, <br />Better the toil of fields like these <br />Than waking dream and slothful ease. <br />But life, though falling like our grain, <br />Like that revives and springs again; <br />And, early called, how blest are they <br />Who wait in heaven their harvest-day!<br /><br />John Greenleaf Whittier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/seed-time-and-harvest-2/
