My Furrow By NELSON ANTRIM CRAWFORD Plow a straight furrow, Said the husbandman, Said the schoolmaster, Had I plowed a straight furrow, I had sat down to eat and drink, I had stayed long to rest me. Yes, I think I should have died in the white cottage. But my furrow has touched a stream bank, It has crossed a yellow road With wine-dark grapes by the side of it. I am still plowing my furrow. I have come to no end of it, And maybe shall come to none ever. I meet the husbandman, I meet the schoolmaster, Still they say: Plow a straight furrow. Let me never plow a straight furrow. Milk-Salesman By L. F. MERRELL It's not so hard being a milk-man — Or milk-salesman- as I am styled on the payroll. I have grown quite used to this monotonous pattern Stolen from each priceless day: The sudden, vicious rattle of the alarm clock; The long drive through deserted streets to the route; Wiping bottles; shifting cases of milk and cream; running stops; reading milk-cards and marking my book; All done by lantern light, And often in a merciless rain that soaks to the skin, Leaving an ache in my shoulders; This I can face with firm lips and clear eyes. But my heart grows faint When the pale moon softly caresses Quiet trees and white roses. Yes, I could drop in my tracks, Overwhelmed with sheer beauty, When the new day peers Through the crimson, eastern windows, Hailed by a jargon of bird calls Entwining themselves In the streaming locks of morning. By HARTLEY B. ALEXANDER The wind is coming to me, Fanned onward by wings cloud-feathered, Soft with white snow, gray with misty rain, Fragrant and freshening come the winds The Spirit Winds. They breathe upon my body, They lave me in their coolness, With their fullness they obliterate me. Death, too, is a Spirit! Death, too, is a Wind! By ALBERT EDMUND TROMBLY I TO CERTAIN TREES I know that I've been heedless of your patient beauty, Heedless of what most - God meant to be my duty; But when in spring the first warm days have eased your swollen buds And the tender green of new leaves is poking through brown hoods, My guilt will lie upon me heavily as a yoke, II THE FIELDS How the tired fields stretch themselves out after the harvest, Worn, worn to brown stubble. Under the bright cold stars of the winter they'll sleep Deep, deep. And at length With the first grey Yawning of day, When the first birds ring "Spring! spring!" Splendid husbandmen, They'll bestir themselves then Renewed in their strength. III A BOY'S HANDS (For May) Locked all the winter long Crusted, frost-bitten, and chapped To make a fine whistle. IV WALLS Wall after wall looms up-wall after wall! God to be free, to be free to live like a mouse Nibbler of scanty fare and with only a hole for house! Lone as an owl I would be, lone as a leaf in the fall, Lone as the dead of night, but a hundred voices call: Friendship and love with their tentacles, offspring and kin God how I'd throw them off if I had the virtue of sin! But the walls loom up, loom up, wall after wall. |