Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)
An Epitaph for a Husbandman
1He who would start and rise
2 Before the crowing cocks, --
3No more he lifts his eyes,
4 Whoever knocks.
5He who before the stars
6 Would call the cattle home, --
7They wait about the bars
8 For him to come.
9Him at whose hearty calls
10 The farmstead woke again
11The horses in their stalls
12 Expect in vain.
13Busy and blithe and bold
14 He laboured for the morrow, --
15The plough his hands would hold
16 Rusts in the furrow.
17His fields he had to leave,
18 His orchards cool and dim;
19The clods he used to cleave
20 Now cover him.
21But the green, growing things
22 Lean kindly to his sleep, --
23White roots and wandering strings,
24 Closer they creep.
25Because he loved them long
26 And with them bore his part,
27Tenderly now they throng
28 About his heart.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 143-44. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
June
1895
Publication date note: Cosmopolitan (June 1895).
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3
Rhyme: abab
Other poems by Charles G. D. Roberts
