| |
| COMETH a voice:—‘My children, hear; | |
| From the crowded street and the close-packed mart | |
| I call you back with my message clear, | |
| Back to my lap and my loving heart. | |
| Long have ye left me, journeying on | 5 |
| By range and river and grassy plain, | |
| To the teeming towns where the rest have gone— | |
| Come back, come back to my arms again. | |
| |
| ‘So shall ye lose the foolish needs | |
| That gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve | 10 |
| To heal the ills that the city breeds, | |
| The pallid cheek and the fretted nerve. | |
| Treading the turf that ye once loved well, | |
| Instead of the stones of the city’s street, | |
| Ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, | 15 |
| But the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. | |
| |
| ‘Yonder, beneath the smoke-smeared sky, | |
| A city of half a million souls | |
| That struggle and chaffer and strive and cry | |
| By a sullied river that seaward rolls. | 20 |
| But here, blue range and full-filled creek, | |
| And the soil made glad by the welcome rain | |
| Waiting the plough. If peace ye seek, | |
| Come back, come back to my arms again. | |
| |
| ‘I that am old have seen long since | 25 |
| Ruin of palaces made with hands | |
| For the soldier-king and the priest and prince | |
| Whose cities crumble in desert sands. | |
| But still the furrow in many a clime | |
| Yields softly under the ploughman’s feet; | 30 |
| Still there is seeding and harvest time, | |
| And the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. | |
| |
| ‘Where is Persepolis? Ask the Wind | |
| That once the tresses of Thais kissed. | |
| A stone or two you may haply find | 35 |
| Where Night and the Desert keep their tryst. | |
| But the broken goblet is cast away, | |
| And to seek for the lights that are lost is vain. | |
| The city passes; the green fields stay— | |
| Come back, come back to my arms again. | 40 |
| |
| ‘The works of man are but little worth; | |
| For a time they stand, for a space endure; | |
| But turn once more to your mother—Earth, | |
| My gifts are gracious, my works are sure. | |
| Green shoot of herbage for growing herd, | 45 |
| And blossoming promise of fruitage sweet, | |
| These shall not fail, if ye heed my word, | |
| Nor the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. | |
| |
| ‘Would ye fashion a nation, whole and true, | |
| Goodly-proportioned, sound at core? | 50 |
| Then this, my sons, ye must surely do— | |
| Give city less, and country more. | |
| Would ye rear a race to hold this land | |
| From foemen steering across the main? | |
| Then, children, listen and understand— | 55 |
| Come back, come back to my arms again. | |
| |
| ‘Your coastwise cities are passing fair— | |
| Jetty and warehouse and banking-hall, | |
| Tower and dome and statued square— | |
| But who is to guard when the blow shall fall? | 60 |
| The men who can shoot and ride are found | |
| Not where the clerks and the shopmen meet, | |
| But out, where the reaper hears the sound | |
| Of the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. | |
| |
| ‘Ye know, who have long since left the loam | 65 |
| For a city job in some crowded works, | |
| That sorrow abides in the straitened home, | |
| And Death in the stifling factory lurks. | |
| And some, who are out of a job, must sleep | |
| On a city bench in the driving rain. | 70 |
| Of happier days are ye dreaming deep? | |
| Come back, come back to my arms again. | |
| |
| ‘There in the city, by jungle law, | |
| Each fights for his meat till set of sun. | |
| By the deadliest fang and the sharpest claw | 75 |
| The right to the largest share is won. | |
| But here there is neither strife nor guile, | |
| The brazen robber nor smooth-tongued cheat. | |
| Your gold is safe—where the harvests smile, | |
| And the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. | 80 |
| |
| ‘I mind me once, in a sunlit land, | |
| Lancer, Hussar, and fierce Uhlan | |
| Came galloping in on every hand, | |
| And poppied cornfields over-ran. | |
| And many a sabre was stoutly plied, | 85 |
| And many a hero kissed the plain, | |
| And many a hero’s mother cried, | |
| “Come back, come back to my arms again!” | |
| |
| ‘But when no longer the trumpets pealed, | |
| And the stricken land was at rest once more, | 90 |
| They found a peasant who sowed his field | |
| Nor knew that France had been at war. | |
| E’en so, instead of the strife and pain | |
| I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. | |
| Come back, come back to my arms again, | 95 |
| For the wind still croons in the ripening wheat.’ | |
| |
