A Sower

With sanguine looks
    And rolling walk
Among the rooks
    He loved to stalk,

While on the land
    With gusty laugh
From a full hand
    He scattered chaff.

Now that within
    His spirit sleeps
A harvest thin
    The sickle reaps;

But the dumb fields
    Desire his tread,
And no earth yields
    A wheat more red.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

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English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Sower.

Sitting in a porchway cool,
Fades the ruddy sunlight fast,
Twilight hastens on to rule -
Working hours are wellnigh past

Shadows shoot across the lands;
But one sower lingers still,
Old, in rags, he patient stands, -
Looking on, I feel a thrill.

Black and high his silhouette
Dominates the furrows deep!
Now to sow the task is set,
Soon shall come a time to reap.

Marches he along the plain,
To and fro, and scatters wide
From his hands the precious grain;
Moody, I, to see him stride.

Darkness deepens. Gone the light.
Now his gestures to mine eyes
Are august; and strange - his height
Seems to touch the starry skies.

TORU DUTT.

Victor-Marie Hugo

Wild Oats.

Oh gay young husbandmen would you be sure of a crop
Upspringing rankly, an abundant and bountiful yield?
Go forth in the morning, and sow on your life's broad field
This pleasantly odorous seed, then smooth the ground on top,
Or leave it rough, with the utmost undeceit,
Never you fear, it will thriftily thrive and grow,
Loading the harvest plain beneath your feet,
With the ripened sheaves of shame, remorse, and woe.

You have but to sow the seed, no care will it want,
For he who soweth tares while the husbandman sleeps
Taketh unwearied pains, a vigilant guard he keeps
Tirelessly watching, and tending each evil plant.
These are his pleasure gardens, leased to him through time
Where he walketh to and fro, chanting a demon song;
Tending with ghastly fingers, the scarl...

Marietta Holley

The Sower. (Little Poems In Prose.)

1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.

2. His face was blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loins, his back was ridged with furrows, his breast was plowed with stripes.

3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed.

4. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree. Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, the heavens were darkened with its shadow.

5. It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fruitage of health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage, and a serpent was coiled about its stem.

6. Under its branches a divinely beautiful man, crowned with thorns, was nailed to a cross.

7. And the tree put forth treachero...

Emma Lazarus

The Sower. - Matthew xiii.3.

Ye sons of earth, prepare the plough,
Break up the fallow ground;
The sower is gone forth to sow,
And scatter blessings round.


The seed that finds a stony soil,
Shoots forth a hasty blade;
But ill repays the sowers toil,
Soon witherd, scorchd, and dead.


The thorny ground is sure to balk
All hopes of harvest there;
We find a tall and sickly stalk,
But not the fruitful ear.


The beaten path and highway side
Receive the trust in vain;
The watchful birds the spoil divide,
And pick up all the grain.


But where the Lord of grace and power
Has blessd the happy field,
How plenteous is the golden store
The deep-wrought furrows yield!


Father of mercies, we have need
Of thy preparing g...

William Cowper

Messidor

Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.

Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows ruddier than gold,
And the good strong sun is alight
In the mists of the day-dawn white,
And the crescent, a faint sharp horn,
In the fear of his face turns cold
As the snakes of the night-time that creep
From the flag of our faith unrolled.
Put in the sickles and reap.

In the mists of the day-dawn white
That roll round the morning star,
The large flame lightens and grows
Till the red...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

John S. Crow.

All alone in the field
Stands John S. Crow;
And a curious sight is he,
With his head of tow,
And a hat pulled low
On a face that you never see.

His clothes are ragged
And horrid and old,
The worst that ever were worn;
They're covered with mold,
And in each fold
A terrible rent is torn.

They once were new
And spick and span,
As nice as clothes could be;
For though John hardly can
Be called a man,
They were made for men you see.

That old blue coat,
With a double breast
And a brass button here and there,
Was grandfather's best,
And matches the vest--
The one Uncle Phil used to wear.

The trousers are short;
They belonged to Bob
Before he had got his growth;
But John's no snob,
And,...

Clara Doty Bates