Classic Poem

Against the sunset glow they stand,
Two humblest toilers of the land,
Rugged of speech and rough of hand,
Bowed down by tillage;
No grace of garb or circumstance
Invests them with a high romance,
Ten thousand such through fruitful France,
In field and village.

The day's slow path from dawn to west
Has left them, soil-bestained, distrest,
No thought beyond the nightly rest, —
New toil to-morrow;

Till solemnly the " Ave " bell
Rings out the sun's departing knell,
Borne by the breezes' rhythmic swell
O'er swathe and furrow.

O lowly pair! you dream it not,
Yet on your hard unlovely lot
That evening gleam of light has shot
A glorious presage;
For prophets oft have yearned and kings,
Have yearned in vain to know the things
Which to your simple spirits brings
That curfew message.

Turn to the written page, and read
In other strain the peasant's creed,
With satyr love and vampire greed
How hearts are tainted;

Read to the end unmoved who can,
Read how the primal curse on man
May shape a fouler Caliban
Than poet painted!

And this is Nature! Be it so:
It needs a master's hand to show
How through the man the brute may grow
By Hell's own leaven;
We blame you not: enough for us
Those two lone figures bending thus,
For whom that far-off Angelus
Speaks Hope and Heaven.