But yesterday I passed this way,
And stopped to watch the daisies growing
The wind, I guessed, alone had pressed
This field where now the men are mowing.
The tiptoe grass, to see me pass,
Did laugh, and like a song o'erblowing
Did float and sink the bobolink--
Heaven keep his nest amid the mowing! But oh, what fragrance fills the air,
More dear than all the summer blowing!
These scented banks were gleaming ranks--
Ah, woeful sweet it is, the mowing!
I shut my eyes, I breathe quick sighs,
I hear the cheery labor flowing,
With bird and bee persuading me
That naught but joy is in the mowing. But thou, alas; fair martyr, Grass,
My Saint Perpetua of the meadow,
Early and late the severing fate
Presses thee, heedless of the shadow.
In crowning hour of leaf and flower,
In pride of life, in beauty glowing,
How rich a heart was riven apart
To yield such incense to the mowing! A moment's dread had bowed my head;
Low growth am I, of Some One's sowing,
How shall I dare to climb the air,
Beneath that terror of the mowing?
But these that know its utmost woe,
Cry cheerily, "Never stint thy growing:
Not death but gain, and life amain,
Is all the meaning of the mowing."