John Stuart Thomson (1869–1950)

A TRUCE with cares and labours! I have cried;

And traced the sweet winds to the barley field,

To watch the strong browned reapers, joyous wield

Their curved and twinkling sickles side by side.

And where the harvest valley opened wide,

A breeze fell down among the rip’ning grain,

Driving the golden waves across the plain,

And dipping in the nooks, where fieldlarks hide.

Brave with its gambol, still it went until

It waved the loosestrifes’ ribbons o’er the hill,

And spilled the dazzling sunset from the flow’rs.

Within a forest, then it hid at night;

To waken when the morning filled the bow’rs

With fragrance, and with floods of violet light.