The Harvest Of The Sea

The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.

The wave tops whiten on the sea fields drear,
And men go forth at haggard dawn to reap;
But ever 'mid the gleaners' song we hear
The half-hushed sobbing of the hearts that weep.

John McCrae

John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, and soldier during World War I. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem 'In Flanders Fields'. McCrae served as a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. His experiences in the war profoundly influenced his writing. Despite contracting pneumonia and falling ill, he continued to serve until his death from complications of the illness in 1918. His legacy endures through his evocative poetry.

John McCrae

Then And Now

John McCrae, Simple Poetry

Quebec

John McCrae, Simple Poetry

The Oldest Drama

John McCrae, Simple Poetry

Anarchy

John McCrae, Simple Poetry

English

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The Harvest of the Sea

        The earth grows white with harvest; all day long
        The sickles gleam, until the darkness weaves
        Her web of silence o'er the thankful song
        Of reapers bringing home the golden sheaves.

        The wave tops whiten on the sea fields drear,
        And men go forth at haggard dawn to reap;
        But ever 'mid the gleaners' song we hear
        The half-hushed sobbing of the hearts that weep.

John McCrae

In Due Season

If night should come and find me at my toil,
When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil
Were all my labour: Shall I count it naught

If only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,
Shall pick a scanty sheaf where I have sown?
"Nay, for of thee the Master doth demand
Thy work: the harvest rests with Him alone."

John McCrae

The Reapers' Song.

The harvest is nodding on valley and plain,
    To the scythe and the sickle its treasures must yield;
Through sunshine and shower we have tended the grain;
    'Tis ripe to our hand!--to the field--to the field!
If the sun on our labours too warmly should smile,
Why a horn of good ale shall the long hours beguile.
Then, a largess! a largess!--kind stranger, we pray,
We have toiled through the heat of the long summer day!

With his garland of poppies red August is here,
    And the forest is losing its first tender green;
Pale Autumn will reap the last fruits of the year,
    And Winter's white mantle will cover the scene.
To the field!--to the field! whilst the Summer is ours
We will reap her ripe corn--we will cull her bright flowers.
Then, a largess! a largess! ...

Susanna Moodie

In Due Season

        If night should come and find me at my toil,
        When all Life's day I had, tho' faintly, wrought,
        And shallow furrows, cleft in stony soil
        Were all my labour:    Shall I count it naught

        If only one poor gleaner, weak of hand,
        Shall pick a scanty sheaf where I have sown?
        "Nay, for of thee the Master doth demand
        Thy work:    the harvest rests with Him alone."

John McCrae

The Dead Master

Amid earth's vagrant noises, he caught the note sublime:
To-day around him surges from the silences of Time
A flood of nobler music, like a river deep and broad,
Fit song for heroes gathered in the banquet-hall of God.

John McCrae

The Song Of The Derelict

Ye have sung me your songs, ye have chanted your rimes
(I scorn your beguiling, O sea!)
Ye fondle me now, but to strike me betimes.
(A treacherous lover, the sea!)
Once I saw as I lay, half-awash in the night
A hull in the gloom, a quick hail, and a light
And I lurched o'er to leeward and saved her for spite
From the doom that ye meted to me.

I was sister to `Terrible', seventy-four,
(Yo ho! for the swing of the sea!)
And ye sank her in fathoms a thousand or more
(Alas! for the might of the sea!)
Ye taunt me and sing me her fate for a sign!
What harm can ye wreak more on me or on mine?
Ho braggart! I care not for boasting of thine,
A fig for the wrath of the sea!

Some night to the lee of the land I shall steal,
(Heigh-ho to be home from the se...

John McCrae