What had she felt,
If, through the rhythmic motion of light forms,
A vision, had arisen; as when, of old,
The minstrel’s art laid bare the seer’s eye,
And showed him plenteous waters in the waste? 
If she had seen her ploughman-lover go
With his great stride across some lonely field,
Beneath the dark blue vault, ablaze with stars,
And lift his full eyes to earth’s radiant roof
In gladness that the roof was yet a floor
For other feet to tread, for his, one day? 
Or the emerging vision might reveal
Him, in his room, with space-compelling mind,
Pursue, upon his slate, some planet’s course;
Or read, and justify the poet’s wrath,
Or wise man’s slow conclusion; or, in dreams,
All gently bless her with a trembling voice
For that old smile, that withered nevermore,
That woke him, smiled him into what he is;
Or, kneeling, cry to God for better still. 
Would those dark eyes have beamed with darker light? 
Would that fair soul, all tired of emptiness,
Have risen from the couch of its unrest,
And looked to heaven again, again believed
In God’s realities of life and fact? 
Would not her soul have sung unto itself,
In secret joy too good for that vain throng: 
“I have a friend, a ploughman, who is wise,
And knoweth God, and goodness, and fair faith;
Who needeth not the outward shows of things,
But worships the unconquerable truth: 
And this man loveth me; I will be proud
And humble—­would he love me if he knew?”

In the third year, a heavy harvest fell,
Full filled, beneath the reaping-hook and scythe. 
The men and maidens in the scorching heat
Held on their toil, lightened by song and jest;
Resting at mid-day, and from brimming bowl,
Drinking brown ale, and white abundant milk;
Until the last ear fell, and stubble stood
Where waved the forests of the murmuring corn;
And o’er the land rose piled the tent-like shocks,
As of an army resting in array
Of tent by tent, rank following on rank;
Waiting until the moon should have her will
Of ripening on the ears.

And all went well. 
The grain was fully ripe.  The harvest carts
Went forth broad-platformed for the towering load,
With frequent passage ’twixt homeyard and field. 
And half the oats already hid their tops,
Of countless spray-hung grains—­their tops, by winds
Swayed oft, and ringing, rustling contact sweet;
Made heavy oft by slow-combining dews,
Or beaten earthward by the pelting rains;
Rising again in breezes to the sun,
And bearing all things till the perfect time—­
Had hid, I say, this growth of sun and air
Within the darkness of the towering stack;
When in the north low billowy clouds appeared,
Blue-based, white-topped, at close of afternoon;
And in the west, dark masses, plashed with blue,
With outline vague of misty steep and dell,
Clomb o’er the hill-tops; there was thunder there. 
The air was sultry.  But the upper sky
Was clear and radiant.