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James Russell Lowell - The Sower
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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 armed 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.`
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