Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

The New Day. Part 3. 30. The Sower

I

A sower went forth to sow;
His eyes were dark with woe;
He crusht the flowers beneath his feet,
Nor smelt the perfume, warm and sweet,
That prayed for pity everywhere.
He came to a field that was harried
By iron, and to heaven laid bare;
He shook the seed that he carried
O'er that brown and bladeless place.
He shook it, as God shakes hail
Over a doomèd land,
When lightnings interlace
The sky and the earth, and His wand
Of love is a thunder-flail.
Thus did that Sower sow;
His seed was human blood,
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,
Said: When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
Flame, and ashes, and woe.

II

It was an autumn day
When next I went that way.
And what, think you, did I see,
What was it that I heard,
What music was in the air?
The song of a sweet-voiced bird?
Nay—but the songs of many,
Thrilled through with praise and prayer.
Of all those voices not any
Were sad of memory;
But a sea of sunlight flowed,
A golden harvest glowed,
And I said: Thou only art wise,
God of the earth and skies!
And I praise Thee, again and again,
For the Sower whose name is Pain.

1. The New Day. Part 4. 17. “He Knows Not the Path of Duty”
2. The New Day. Part 3. 12. Denial
3. The New Day. Part 3. 19. Thistle-Down
4. The New Day. Part 4. 4. Song (Not from the whole wide world I chose thee)
5. The New Day. Part 3. 22. The Lover's Lord and Master

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