Читать книгу The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell - James Russell Lowell - Страница 169

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I saw a Sower walking slow

Across the earth, from east to west;

His hair was white as mountain snow,

His head drooped forward on his breast.

With shrivelled hands he flung his seed,

Nor ever turned to look behind;

Of sight or sound he took no heed;

It seemed, he was both deaf and blind.

His dim face showed no soul beneath,

Yet in my heart I felt a stir,

As if I looked upon the sheath,

That once had held Excalibur.

I heard, as still the seed he cast,

How, crooning to himself, he sung.

'I sow again the holy Past,

The happy days when I was young.

'Then all was wheat without a tare,

Then all was righteous, fair, and true;

And I am he whose thoughtful care

Shall plant the Old World in the New.

'The fruitful germs I scatter free,

With busy hand, while all men sleep;

In Europe now, from sea to sea,

The nations bless me as they reap.'

Then I looked back along his path.

And heard the clash of steel on steel,

Where man faced man, in deadly wrath,

While clanged the tocsin's hurrying peal.

The sky with burning towns flared red,

Nearer the noise of fighting rolled.

And brothers' blood, by brothers shed,

Crept curdling over pavements cold.

Then marked I how each germ of truth

Which through the dotard's fingers ran

Was mated with a dragon's tooth

Whence there sprang up an armèd man.

I shouted, but he could not hear;

Made signs, but these he could not see;

And still, without a doubt or fear,

Broadcast he scattered anarchy.

Long to my straining ears the blast

Brought faintly back the words he sung:

'I sow again the holy Past,

The happy days when I was young.'