The winds had hushed at last as by command; <br />The quiet sky above, <br />With its grey clouds spread oer the fallow land, <br />Sat brooding like a dove. <br /> <br />There was no motion in the air, no sound <br />Within the tree-tops stirred, <br />Save when some last leaf, fluttering to the ground, <br />Dropped like a wounded bird. <br /> <br />Or when the swart rooks in a gathering crowd <br />With clamorous noises wheeled, <br />Hovering awhile, then swooped with wrangling loud <br />Down to the stubbly field. <br /> <br />For now the big-thewed horses, toiling slow <br />In straining couples yoked, <br />Patiently dragged the plowshare to and fro <br />Till their wet haunches smoked. <br /> <br />Till the stiff acre, broken into clods, <br />Bruised by the harrow's tooth, <br />Lay lightly shaken, with its humid sods <br />Ranged into furrows smooth. <br /> <br />There looming lone, from rise to set of sun, <br />Without or pause or speed, <br />Solemnly striding by the furrows dun, <br />The sower sows the seed. <br /> <br />The sower sows the seed, which mouldering, <br />Deep coffined in the earth, <br />Is buried now, but with the future spring <br />Will quicken into birth. <br /> <br />Oh, poles of birth and death! Controlling Powers <br />Of human toil and need! <br />On this fair earth all men are surely sowers, <br />Surely all life is seed! <br /> <br />All life is seed, dropped in Time's yawning furrow, <br />Which with slow sprout and shoot, <br />In the revolving world's unfathomed morrow, <br />Will blossom and bear fruit.<br /><br />Mathilde Blind<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sower-7/
