Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Haunted ReapingLeyland Huckfield
O
Over the hills to the reaping.
Our sickles crash on the golden corn
When the rest of earth is sleeping.
Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
Gathering in and striking free,
Gripping the sheaf with the sickle and knee
And laying it down for the tying.
The silence breeds a sullen dread,
Our sickle strokes like shrieks resound
In chambers of the murdered dead.
But one dull star stays overhead,
The waning moon seems all awry.
The dying night is loth to die
Though in the east the mists are red.
Like breaths from a dead world blowing,
God! it is awesome so to reap
With such strange fancies growing.
Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
Gathering in and striking free,
Gripping the sheaf with sickle and knee,
And laying it down for the tying.
With hairy arms as hard as steel.
I hear the corn as oft of yore
Before his whirling sickle reel;
And, God, what wild, mad horrors steal!—
Bidding me take too long a stride,
And drive my sickle in his side,
And grind his face beneath my heel.
With its haunted hush dismaying—
It seems as though pale souls newborn
Our curved wet blades were slaying.
Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
Gathering in and striking free,
Gripping the sheaf with the sickle and knee
And laying it down for the tying.
It trails like mist in heavy wind.
He was three-score yesterday,
And yet I reap six feet behind.
Lean he is, and bent, and lined,
And he has held me many years;
And still I toil in hate and tears,
And still he swears that he is kind.
I know he is old and loving,
Yet I hear with every stroke I make
A demon with me moving;
Bending and bowing, bending and bowing,
Gathering in and striking free,
Gripping the sheaf with sickle and knee
And laying it down for the tying.
The hills are rich with filtered gold,
And through the vales a glory vast
In glowing might is swiftly rolled.
And hard my father’s hand I hold,
And, standing ’midst the gleaming corn,
With him thank Heaven for the morn—
With lips that still are gray and cold!