THE WHEATFIELD AT GETTYSBURG

THESE famous acres bear a mystic wheat
That waits the Reaper’s scythe
Alike in Summer shine and Winter sleet
And when the May is blithe.

Here phantom squirrels fenceward haste with grains

Of gleeful-taken toll
From waist-high stalks that hide meandering lanes
Of phantom mouse and mole.

Forever twittering wheat to nesting mate
A spirit oriole cries,

And ghostly bands of plundering crows elate
Caw beneath long-past skies.

In vain did Valor’s fiery onset tread
The actual straw to dust,
And steep the living grain in pulsing red

From bullet and from thrust.

The Field stands wealthy with immortal wheat
Man never reaped for bread,
Touched by funereal zephyrs passing sweet
Where lay The Nameless Dead.

Imperishably set as Round Top’s stones
The wheat forever waves
Peaceful as Gettysburg’s white steeple drones
Over the host of graves. [Page 133]