If you go to the field where the reapers now bind <br />The sheaves of ripe corn, there a fine little lass, <br />Only three months of age, by the hedge-row you'll find, <br />Left alone by its mother upon the low grass. <br /> <br /> <br />While the mother is reaping, the infant is sleeping; <br />Not the basket that holds the provision is less <br />By the hard-working reaper, than this little sleeper, <br />Regarded, till hunger does on the babe press. <br /> <br /> <br />Then it opens its eyes, and it utters loud cries, <br />Which its hard-working mother afar off will hear; <br />She comes at its calling, she quiets its squalling, <br />And feeds it, and leaves it again without fear. <br /> <br /> <br />When you were as young as this field-nursëd daughter, <br />You were fed in the house, and brought up on the knee; <br />So tenderly watched, thy fond mother thought her <br />Whole time well bestowed in nursing of thee.<br /><br />Charles Lamb<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-reaper-s-child/
