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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  212. I am the Reaper

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

212. I am the Reaper

I AM the Reaper.

All things with heedful hook

Silent I gather.

Pale roses touched with the spring,

Tall corn in summer,

Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms—

Reaping, still reaping—

All things with heedful hook

Timely I gather.

I am the Sower.

All the unbodied life

Runs through my seed-sheet.

Atom with atom wed,

Each quickening the other,

Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless.

Ceaselessly sowing,

Life, incorruptible life,

Flows from my seed-sheet.

Maker and breaker,

I am the ebb and the flood,

Here and Hereafter,

Sped through the tangle and coil

Of infinite nature,

Viewless and soundless I fashion all being.

Taker and giver,

I am the womb and the grave,

The Now and the Ever.