A CORN-FIELD IN GLENCROE. 199 



A CORN-FIELD IN GLENCROE. 



DEEP in the emerald cup of circling hills, 

 A corn-field lies along the rugged bank 

 Of a wild river, that has cut its way 

 Through rocky orbit, filled with pastures old 

 Lit up with yellow stars of tormentil, 

 Where once had laughed the blue eye of a lake. 

 Redeemed from nature's wildness by man's toil, 

 The little lonely croft smiles in the waste, 

 And speaks of all the tender things of home. 

 The poppy kindles not its cross of fire, 

 Nor lifts the corn-flower its blue banner there, 

 Nature's stern struggle with itself to wage. 

 The mountains dower with their own floral gifts 

 The foster child they have so gently reared ; 

 And twine among its yellow hair their wreaths 

 Of purple scabious, snowy euphrasy, 

 And silken Alpine lady's- mantle rare. 

 Day after day I've watched the lean ears fill 

 With secret sweetness from the earth and sky, 

 And o'er each stem and glume the russet hue 

 Of ripeness creeping from the sunsets low, 

 Until the field, whose greenness blended once 

 With the green hills, now stands a thing apart, 

 A patch of mimic sunshine prisoned there, 

 A golden aureole round Nature's brow. 

 What sacred memories gather round the plot, 

 That take us back to old idyllic days, 

 When all men laboured in the harvest-field, 



