Thro' Farmer Gale's wide fields I passed
⁠Just yestereve;
My week of holiday was spent,
And idly on the stile I leant,
⁠Taking my leave

Of all the fair and smiling plain,
⁠Wood, vale, and hill,
And all the homely household band
(The warm grasp of each kindly hand
⁠Bides with me still);

And I was sad. The stricken grain
⁠Around me lay;
I could but think of silent glade —
Of buds and blossoms lowly laid
⁠That harvest day.

"And this is all!" I sadly said,
⁠"These withered leaves —
This gathered grain! Spring's hours of bliss
And summer's glory turn to this —
⁠Some yellow sheaves!"

Then Farmer Gale — that good old man,
⁠So simply wise —
Who overheard, and quickly turned,
Said, while a spark of anger burned
⁠In his grey eyes,

"Lad, thou art town-bred, knowing nought
⁠Whereof thou pratest!
For, be the flower as fair as May,
The fruit it yields in harvest day
⁠Is still the greatest!

"And thou — thy spring shall quickly pass;
⁠Fast fall the leaves
From life's frail tree. In harvest day
See that before thy Lord thou lay
⁠Some yellow sheaves."

He went his way; I mine; and now
⁠I hear the flow
Of busy life in crowded street —
Of eager voices, hurrying feet,
⁠That come and go.

Yet e'en while flashing factory looms
⁠My hands engage,
I see that far-off upland plain —
Its long, long rows of gathered grain,
⁠Its rustic sage,

And hear them say, "Let pleasures fair,
⁠And passions vain,
And youthful follies fade and die;
But all good deeds, pure thoughts and high,
⁠Like golden grain,

"Be gathered still." Blest harvest store,
⁠That only grows
In hearts besprinkled with the blood
That evermore — a sacred flood —
⁠From Calvary flows!

Lord, when thou callest, when this world
⁠My spirit leaves,
Then to thy feet, oh, let me come,
Bringing, in joyful harvest-home,
⁠Some yellow sheaves!

From the realm of old-world story
⁠There beckons a lily hand,
That calls up the sweetness, the glory,
⁠The sounds of a magic land.

Where huge flowers droop in the splendor
⁠Of closing day's golden red,
And gaze on each other with tender
⁠Looks as of lovers new wed;

Where all the trees, too, have voices,
⁠And all like a chorus sing,
And a sound as of music rejoices
⁠In the babble of every spring;

On the air songs of true love are swelling,
⁠Such as never elsewhere thou hast heard,
Till by yearnings divine beyond telling
⁠Thy soul is divinely stirr'd.

Oh me, if I might go thither,
⁠And gladden my careworn breast,
Shake off all the sorrows that wither,
⁠Be happy and truly at rest!

Ah, many a time in my dreaming
⁠Through that blessed region I roam!
Then the morning sun comes with its beaming,
⁠And scatters it all like foam.

Of thy unwritten records, faerie Gower,
⁠O'ermounded sepulchre or cromlech grey,
⁠Giddy hill-fortress perch'd above the spray
That beats thy cliffs with unrelenting power,
Or cavern never reach'd by sun or shower, —
⁠ One relic, open'd to the eye of day
⁠Out of the wind-swept sand-drift, brings a ray
Of light to gild thy long bedarken'd hour.
Lo, the unburied church on Penmaen downs!
⁠Token of prayer and praise and minist'ring hands,
⁠Of penitence and shrift for lawless bands.
One roof the cross, 'mid the wild dwellings, crowns,
⁠The vesper bell rings softly o'er the sands,
Nor all unblest the realm where Penard frowns.