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THE SONG OF THE SOWER.
63
And him who breaks the quarry-ledge,
With hammer-blows, plied quick and strong,
And him who, with the steady sledge,
Smites the shrill anvil all day long.
Sprinkle the furrow's even trace
For those whose toiling hands uprear
The roof-trees of our swarming race,
By grove and plain, by stream and mere;
Who forth, from crowded city, lead
The lengthening street, and overlay
Green orchard plot and grassy mead
With pavement of the murmuring way.
Cast, with full hands, the harvest cast,
For the brave men that climb the mast,
When to the billow and the blast
It swings and stoops, with fearful strain,
And bind the fluttering mainsail fast,
Till the tossed bark shall sit, again,
Safe as a seabird in the main.
With hammer-blows, plied quick and strong,
And him who, with the steady sledge,
Smites the shrill anvil all day long.
Sprinkle the furrow's even trace
For those whose toiling hands uprear
The roof-trees of our swarming race,
By grove and plain, by stream and mere;
Who forth, from crowded city, lead
The lengthening street, and overlay
Green orchard plot and grassy mead
With pavement of the murmuring way.
Cast, with full hands, the harvest cast,
For the brave men that climb the mast,
When to the billow and the blast
It swings and stoops, with fearful strain,
And bind the fluttering mainsail fast,
Till the tossed bark shall sit, again,
Safe as a seabird in the main.