<h2><SPAN name="chap72"></SPAN>HARVEST-MOON: 1914</h2>
<p class="poem">
Over the twilight field,<br/>
The overflowing field,—<br/>
Over the glimmering field,<br/>
And bleeding furrows with their sodden yield<br/>
Of sheaves that still did writhe,<br/>
After the scythe;<br/>
The teeming field and darkly overstrewn<br/>
With all the garnered fulness of that noon—<br/>
Two looked upon each other.<br/>
One was a Woman men called their mother;<br/>
And one, the Harvest-Moon.<br/>
<br/>
And one, the Harvest-Moon,<br/>
Who stood, who gazed<br/>
On those unquiet gleanings where they bled;<br/>
Till the lone Woman said:<br/>
“But we were crazed…<br/>
We should laugh now together, I and you,<br/>
We two.<br/>
You, for your dreaming it was worth<br/>
A star’s while to look on and light the Earth;<br/>
And I, forever telling to my mind,<br/>
Glory it was, and gladness, to give birth<br/>
To humankind!<br/>
Yes, I, that ever thought it not amiss<br/>
To give the breath to men,<br/>
For men to slay again:<br/>
Lording it over anguish but to give<br/>
My life that men might live<br/>
For this.<br/>
You will be laughing now, remembering<br/>
I called you once Dead World, and barren thing,<br/>
Yes, so we named you then,<br/>
You, far more wise<br/>
Than to give life to men.”<br/>
<br/>
Over the field, that there<br/>
Gave back the skies<br/>
A shattered upward stare<br/>
From blank white eyes,—<br/>
Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune<br/>
Of throbbing clay, but dumb and quiet soon,<br/>
She looked; and went her way—<br/>
The Harvest-Moon.<br/></p>
<p class="left">
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEAODY</p>
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