The Day-Labourer
The Day-Labourer
Original Text
Jay Macpherson, Poems Twice Told: The Boatman & Welcoming Disaster (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981): 20.
1Time is a labourer on God’s farm,
2And keeps His living things from harm.
3He sees the fledglings on the bough
4And wards the serpent from their nest;
5He leads the Unicorn to plow,
6At evening brings him home to rest:
7The eternal Phoenix on his arm
8Roosts, rustling the warm feathers of her breast.
Publication Start Year
1957
Publication Notes
The Boatman (Toronto: Oxford, 1957).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Special Copyright
"The Day-Labourer" © Jay Macpherson. Printed gratis, and specifically for Representative Poetry Online, with permission of the author. As published in Poems Twice Told (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981). Any other use, including reproduction for any purposes, educational or otherwise, will require explicit written permission from Jay Macpherson.