Alex’s blog

This is a sad poem that was written recently after the wife and children of the poet died in an accident according the the linked wedbsite brackets(written by the poet after the tragic loss of his wife and children in a fire).

The Reaper and the Flowers by H.W. Longfellow

 

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

 

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;

"Have naught but the bearded grain?

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,

I will give them all back again." 

 

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

 

"My Lord had need of these flowerets gay,"

The Reaper said, and smiled;

"Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where he was once a child. 

 

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,

Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,

These scared blossoms wear."

 

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,

The flowers she most did love;

She knew she should find them all again

In the fields of light above.

 

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The Reaper came that day;

‘T was an angel visited the green earth,

And took the flowers away. 

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed 

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

 

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

 

A link to poem with audio

A link to youtube clip 

 

"But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,"