The Mower In Ohio
by John James Piatt (1835-1917) |
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THE BEES in the clover are making honey, and I am making
my hay:
The air is fresh, I seem to draw a young man's
breath to-day.
The bees and I are alone in the grass:
the air is so very still
I hear the dam, so loud, that
shines beyond the sullen mill.
Yes, the air is so
still that I hear almost the sounds I cannot hear�
That,
when no other sound is plain, ring in my empty ear:
The chime of striking scythes, the fall of the heavy swaths
they sweep�
They ring about me, resting, when I waver
half asleep;
So still, I am not sure if a cloud, low
down, unseen there be,
Or if something brings a rumor
home of the cannon so far from me:
Far away in
Virginia, where Joseph and Grant, I know,
Will tell them
what I meant when first I had my mowers go!
Joseph,
he is my eldest one, the only boy of my three
Whose
shadow can darken my door again, and lighten my heart for
me.
Joseph, he is my eldest�how his scythe was
striking ahead!
William was better at shorter heats, but
Jo in the long run led.
William, he was my youngest;
John, between them I somehow see,
When my eyes are shut,
with a little board at his head in Tennessee.
But
William came home one morning early, from Gettysburg, last
July,
(The mowing was over already, although the only
mower was I):
William, my captain, came home for good
to his mother; and I 'll be bound
We were proud and cried
to see the flag that wrapt his coffin around;
For a
company from the town came up ten miles with music and gun:
It seemed his country claimed him then�as well as his
mother�her son.
But Joseph is yonder with Grant
to-day, a thousand miles or near,
And only the bees are
broad at work with me in the clover here.
Was it a
murmur of thunder I heard that hummed again in the air?
Yet, may be, the cannon are sounding now their Onward to
Richmond there.
But under the beech by the orchard,
at noon, I sat an hour it would seem�
It may be I slept a
minute, too, or wavered into a dream.
For I saw my
boys, across the field, by the flashes as they went,
Tramping a steady tramp as of old, with the strength in
their arms unspent;
Tramping a steady tramp, they
moved like soldiers that march to the beat
Of music that
seems, a part of themselves, to rise and fall with their
feet;
Tramping a steady tramp, they came with flashes
of silver that shone,
Every step, from their scythes that
rang as if they needed the stone�
(The field is wide,
and heavy with grass)�and, coming toward me, they beamed
With a shine of light in their faces at once, and�surely I
must have dreamed!
For I sat alone in the
clover-field, the bees were working ahead.
There were
three in my vision�remember, old man: and what if Joseph
were dead!
But I hope that he and Grant (the flag
above them both, to boot)
Will go into Richmond together,
no matter which is ahead or afoot!
Meantime, alone at
the mowing here�an old man somewhat gray�
I must stay at
home as long as I can, making, myself, the hay.
And
so another round�the quail in the orchard whistles blithe;�
But first I 'll drink at the spring below, and whet again my
scythe. |
By John James Piatt (1835-1917)
Listed August 28, 2013About a
farmer in Ohio, who remembers his sons who all fought in the
Civil War with only
one returning home alive.
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