Harvest Song
Reapers sweep the scythe
And sheafers bush the sheaf –
Gathering the harvest,
Gathering the grain –
Threshers thresh the flail
To tear the seed from leaf –
Gathering the harvest,
Holding off the rain –
Winnow-women winnow,
And siever-maidens sieve,
Prizing out the pearls
That the golden ears give –
For to the corn we’re born,
And by the wheat we live.
Bringing home the harvest down the lane.
Once it took a village,
And ev’ry boy to spare –
Gathering the harvest,
Stooked and ricked and mown –
Now it takes machines,
With no use for man or mare –
Gathering the harvest,
Gathered to the bone –
Children of the corn
And cottage-kitchen wives
Are spared the broken backs
And spared the broken lives,
With Summers never shorn
By the sweeping Reaper’s scythes –
So bring us home the harvest on your own.
Rhyming Couplets 