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Famous Reapers Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Reapers poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous reapers poems. These examples illustrate what a famous reapers poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Burns, Robert
...ove;
I saw thee eye the general mirth
 With boundless love.


“When ripen’d fields and azure skies
Call’d forth the reapers’ rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their ev’ning joys,
 And lonely stalk,
To vent thy bosom’s swelling rise,
 In pensive walk.


“When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering, shot thy nerves along,
Those accents grateful to thy tongue,
 Th’ adorèd Name,
I taught thee how to pour in song,
 To soothe thy flame.


“I saw thy pulse’s...Read more of this...



by Rossetti, Christina
...ch I lay; 
While my soul, love-bound, loitered on its way. 
I did not hear the birds about the eaves, 
Nor hear the reapers talk among the sheaves: 
Only my soul kept watch from day to day, 
My thirsty soul kept watch for one away:-- 
Perhaps he loves, I thought, remembers, grieves. 
At length there came the step upon the stair, 
Upon the lock the old familiar hand: 
Then first my spirit seemed to scent the air 
Of Paradise; then first the tardy sand 
Of time ran gold...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...E FLORAL GAMES, Toulouse, Feb. 10, 1820.} 


 "Sisters! the wave is freshest in the ray 
 Of the young morning; the reapers are asleep; 
 The river bank is lonely: come away! 
 The early murmurs of old Memphis creep 
 Faint on my ear; and here unseen we stray,— 
 Deep in the covert of the grove withdrawn, 
 Save by the dewy eye-glance of the dawn. 
 
 "Within my father's palace, fair to see, 
 Shine all the Arts, but oh! this river side, 
 Pranked with gay flower...Read more of this...

by Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
...sses!
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the maiden,
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them,
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,
Wearing...Read more of this...

by Rossetti, Christina
...lips, and cooled her face
With tears and fanning leaves:
But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,
And early reapers plodded to the place
Of golden sheaves,
And dew-wet grass
Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,
And new buds with new day
Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,
Laura awoke as from a dream,
Laughed in the innocent old way,
Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of gray,
Her breath was sweet as May,
An...Read more of this...



by Toomer, Jean
...o hear the calls of other harvesters whose throats are also dry. 

It would be good to hear their songs . . reapers of the sweet-stalk'd cane, cutters of the corn...even though their throats cracked and the strangeness of their voices deafened me. 

I hunger. My throat is dry. Now that the sun has set and I am chilled, I fear to call. (Eoho, my brothers!) 

I am a reaper. (Eoho!) All my oats are cradled. 
But I am too fatigued t...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...ace and gleaming hand.

And overhead the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky....Read more of this...

by Thoreau, Henry David
...On fields o'er which the reaper's hand has pass'd
Lit by the harvest moon and autumn sun,
My thoughts like stubble floating in the wind
And of such fineness as October airs,
There after harvest could I glean my life
A richer harvest reaping without toil,
And weaving gorgeous fancies at my will
In subtler webs than finest summer haze....Read more of this...

by Milton, John
...g desirous her return, had wove 
Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn 
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown; 
As reapers oft are wont their harvest-queen. 
Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new 
Solace in her return, so long delayed: 
Yet oft his heart, divine of something ill, 
Misgave him; he the faltering measure felt; 
And forth to meet her went, the way she took 
That morn when first they parted: by the tree 
Of knowledge he must pass; there he her me...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...m afar,
And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.
Perchance before our inland seas of gold
Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,
Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,
I may behold thy city; and lay down
Low at thy feet the poet's laurel crown.

Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,
Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,
Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well
Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell....Read more of this...

by Browning, Robert
...r fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.


VII.

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts expand
And grow one in the sense of this world's life.---And then, the last song
When the dead man is praised on his journey---``Bear, bear him along
``With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm-seeds not here
``To console us? The land h...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...came. 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced,
And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent, and came.
And as afield the reapers cut a swath
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn,
And on each side are squares of standing corn,
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare--
So on each side were squares of men, with spears
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand.
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw
Sohrab come forth, and ...Read more of this...

by Clare, John
.... 
Come lovely nymph, and bless the silent hours, 
When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs; 
When weary reapers quit the sultry field, 
And crown'd with corn, their thanks to Ceres yield. 
This harmless grove no lurking viper hides, 
But in my breast the serpent Love abides. 
Here bees from blossoms sip the rosy dew, 
But your Alexis knows no sweets but you. 
Oh deign to visit our forsaken seats, 
The mossy fountains, and the green retreats! 
Where...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...Daphnis sing
The song of Linus through a sunny dell
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
In some Illyrian valley far away,
Where canopied on herbs amaracine
We too might waste the summer-tranced day
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
Of some long-hidden Go...Read more of this...

by Wilde, Oscar
...It is full summer now, the heart of June;
Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
Upon the upland meadow where too soon
Rich autumn time, the season's usurer,
Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
The harebell spreads...Read more of this...

by Scott, Duncan Campbell
...he whirl of the flail,
And wagons of bread,
Sown-laden and lumbering
Through the gateways of cities.

When will the reapers 
Strike in their sickles,
Bending and grasping,
Shearing and spreading;
When will the gleaners
Searching the stubble
Take the last wheat-heads
Home in their arms ?

Ask not the question! -
Something tremendous
Moves to the answer.

Hunger and poverty
Heaped like the ocean
Welters and mutters,
Hold back the sickles!

Millions of children
Born to t...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...ve her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 25 
Or is she known in all the land, 
The Lady of Shalott? 

Only reapers, reaping early 
In among the bearded barley, 
Hear a song that echoes cheerly 30 
From the river winding clearly, 
Down to tower'd Camelot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary, 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy, 
Listening, whispers ''Tis the fairy 35 
Lady of Shalott.' 

PART II
There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colour...Read more of this...

by Tennyson, Alfred Lord
...By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves. Behind
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind.

And one a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire.

And one, an English home--gray twilight ...Read more of this...

by Arnold, Matthew
...I sit and wait,
While to my ear from uplands far away
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,
With distant cries of reapers in the corn— 
All the live murmur of a summer's day.

Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped field,
And here till sundown, shepherd! will I be.
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep,
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep;
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle...Read more of this...

by Akhmatova, Anna
...br>
Under the smoke on the river
Nieva's ice is no longer still.



x x x

God is unkind to gardeners and reapers.
Slanted rain coils and falls from up high
And the wide raincoats catch water,
That once had reflected the sky.

In underwater realm are fields and meadows
And the free currents sing a lot,
Plums rupture on bloated branches
And grass strands, lying down, rot.

And through the dense and watery net
I see your darling face,
A qui...Read more of this...

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