Rlral School Leaflet 961 



I PLOW 



L. H. Bailey 



Quick smell of the earth, I am come once more 

 To the feel of th' soil and the sky before 

 To the tang of th' ditch and wift of the bough 

 With stamp of my team and grip of my plow. 



I am blowing again with th' wind and rain 



I am falling with frost and snow 

 Yearning once more with the fields that have lain 



Through the months of the drouth and flow, — 

 You shall hear the clank of my plow and chain 



Where my hard-harnessed horses throw 

 And follow the welts that I rip in twain 



As I turn up the lands below. 



Jangle and crunch in the far-windy morn 



Cut and grind through the singing sod 

 Stone and high-himimock and thistle and thorn 



Root and stubble and rolling clod 

 Puddles that break into fiurows foreshorn 



Helm of the handles, plow-point's prod, — 

 With hale of great harvests my bouts are borne 



Over th' vasts of the glebes of God. 



Mete to the mark are my furrows full-set 

 Hard with the muscle and marrow and sweat 

 Straightforth is the way and the fields are rife 

 High over the heights of the hills of life. 



