Wheat Poems

Table of Contents

Poems About Wheat

1. Wheat

   by Hamlin Garland

   
   

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   The winds are tangled in the wheat.
   

   In many a yellow breezy mass,
   The rich wheat ripened far away.
   

   They drive home the cows from the pastures,
   Up through the long shady lane,
   Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields
   That are yellow with ripening grain.
   

   Like liquid gold the wheat-field lies,
   A marvel of yellow and green,
   That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
   With the subtle shadows, the change—the sheen
   That plays in the golden hair of a girl.
   

2. Amid the Wheat

   by Clinton Scollard

   
   

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   Amid the wheat, amid the wheat,
   At morn the sturdy gleaners greet
   What time the meadow-lark upsprings
   On buoyant wings, and soars and sings.
   The reapers whet their scythes in tune
   Till dies the sunlit afternoon,
   Then homeward thread the laneways through
   Where grasses gleam with shimmering dew,
   While birds their vesper songs repeat
   Amid the wheat, amid the wheat.
   

   Amid the wheat, amid the wheat,
   The poppies find a shy retreat;
   With every breeze that blows is blent
   Their aromatic, drowsy scent
   That wafts the weary soul away
   Across some wide aerial bay,
   Where shoreless realms of dreamland lie
   Beneath an iridescent sky:
   Such vistas ope to those who meet
   Amid the wheat, amid the wheat.
   

   Amid the wheat, amid the wheat,
   Who strays with frolic-loving feet?
   A little maid that comes to see
   Where dwells the braggart bumble-bee;
   A little maid of summers few,
   With laughing eyes of pansy hue,
   Whose heart is like a morn in May,
   Whose life an endless holiday:
   Ah, may it ever seem as sweet
   As now to her amid the wheat!
   

3. Color in the Wheat

   by Hamlin Garland

   
   

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   Like liquid gold the wheat field lies,
   A marvel of yellow and russet and green,
   That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
   With the subtle shadows, the change, the sheen,
   That play in the golden hair of a girl,—
   A ripple of amber—a flare
   Of light sweeping after—a curl
   In the hollows like swirling feet
   Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
   To the western sun
   Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
   

   Broad as the fleckless, soaring sky,
   Mysterious, fair as the moon-led sea,
   The vast plain flames on the dazzled eye
   Under the fierce sun's alchemy.
   The slow hawk stoops
   To his prey in the deeps;
   The sunflower droops
   To the lazy wave; the wind sleeps—
   Then swirling in dazzling links and loops,
   A riot of shadow and shine,
   A glory of olive and amber and wine,
   To the westering sun the colors run
   Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.
   

   O glorious land! My western land,
   Outspread beneath the setting sun!
   Once more amid your swells, I stand,
   And cross your sod-lands dry and dun.
   I hear the jocund calls of men
   Who sweep amid the ripened grain
   With swift, stern reapers; once again
   The evening splendor floods the plain,
   The crickets' chime
   Makes pauseless rhyme,
   And toward the sun,
   The colors run
   Before the wind's feet
   In the wheat!
   

4. The Promise of Bread

   by C. L. Edson

   Out on the frozen uplands, underneath the snow and sleet,
   In the bosom of the plowland sleeps the Promise of the Wheat;
   With the ice for head-and-footstone, and a snowy shroud outspread
   In the frost-locked tomb of winter sleeps the Miracle of Bread.
   With its hundred thousand reapers and its hundred thousand men,
   And the click of guard and sickle and the flails that turn again, And drover's shout, and snap of whips and creak of horses' tugs,
   And a thin red line o' gingham girls that carry water jugs;
   And yellow stalks and dagger beards that stab thro' cotton clothes,
   And farmer boys a-shocking wheat in long and crooked rows,
   And dust-veiled men on mountain stacks, whose pitchforks flash and gleam;
   And threshing engines shrieking songs in syllables of steam,
   And elevators painted red that lift their giant arms
   And beckon to the Harvest God above the brooding farms,
   And loaded trains that hasten forth, a hungry world to fill—
   All sleeping just beneath the snow, out yonder on the hill.
   

5. A Wheat-Field Fantasy

   by Harry Kemp

   
   

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   As I sat on a Kansas hilltop,
   While, far away from my feet,
   Rippled the lights and shadows
   Dancing across acres of wheat,
   

   The sound of the grain as it murmured
   Wrought a wonder with me—
   It turned from the voice of the Prairie
   Into the roar of the sea.
   

   And I saw, not the running wind-waves,
   But an ocean that washed below
   In ridging and crumbling breakers
   And ceaseless motion and flow;
   

   Then, as a valley is flooded
   With opaline mists at morn
   Which momently flow asunder
   And leave green spaces of corn—
   

   There burst the strangest vision
   Up from that ancient sea.—
   'Twas not the pearl-white Venus
   Anadyomene,
   

   'Twas the bobbing ears of horses
   And a head with a great hat crowned
   And a binder that burst upon me
   Sudden, as from the ground—
   

   And the waves gave place to the wheatlands
   Myriad-touched with gold—
   Then my soul felt century-weary
   And untold aeons old;
   

   For a rock-ledge sloped beside me
   And the lime-traced shells it bore
   Had plied that ancient ocean
   Each with a sentient oar.
   

6. The Fire-Flies in the Wheat

   by Harriet Prescott Spofford

   
   

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   Ah, never of a summer night
   Will life again be half as sweet
   As in that country of delight
   Where straying, staying, with happy feet,
   We watched the fire-flies in the wheat.
   

   Full dark and deep the starless night,
   Still throbbing with the summer heat;
   There was no ray of any light,
   But dancing, glancing, far and fleet,
   Only the fire-flies in the wheat.
   

   In that great country of delight,
   Where youth and love the borders meet,
   We paused and lingered for the sight,
   While sparkling, darkling, flashed the sheet
   Of splendid fire-flies in the wheat.
   

   That night the earth seemed but a height
   Whereon to rest our happy feet,
   Watching one moment that wide flight
   Where lightening, brightening, mount and meet
   Those burning fire-flies in the wheat.
   

   What whispered words whose memory might
   Make an old heart with madness beat,
   Whose sense no music can recite,
   That chasing, racing, rhythmic beat
   Sings out with fire-flies in the wheat.
   

   O never of such blest despite
   Dreamed I, whom fate was wont to cheat—
   And like a star your face, and white—
   While mingling, tingling, wild as sleet,
   Stormed all those fire-flies through the wheat.
   

   Though of that country of delight
   The farther bounds we shall not greet,
   Still, sweet of all, that summer night,
   That maddest, gladdest night most sweet,
   Watching the fire-flies in the wheat!
   

7. I worked for chaff, and earning wheat

   by Emily Dickinson

   I worked for chaff, and earning wheat
   Was haughty and betrayed.
   What right had fields to arbitrate
   In matters ratified?
   

   I tasted wheat, — and hated chaff,
   And thanked the ample friend;
   Wisdom is more becoming viewed
   At distance than at hand.
   

8. Winter Wheat

   by Edith Franklin Wyatt

   
   

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   Riding over height and prairie, when the winter hours grew long,
   Once I heard, a far and airy, something loose a wayside song.
   

   Something sang:—"Wind and rain, dance on road and street.
   Husked the corn. Ground the grain. Green the winter wheat,
   Singing in the sleet!
   Husked the corn, and ground the grain. Green the winter wheat!
   Still are flock and field now, over hill and swale;
   Corn in shock and bield now; cricket hushed and quail.
   

   Bright alfalfa shut your eyes. Sweet tobacco sleep.
   Under stormy-pluming skies, humming watch I keep,
   Where the Youhiogheny flows, washing hoarse and gruff,
   Where the Alleghany goes, over vale and bluff,
   All around the frost-furred stables, sheltered fleece and horn,
   Icy-splintered fence and gables, crackling hedge and thorn.
   Overland, overland, field and pasture sail.
   Down the wold the furrows fold, brown along the rail.
   Many-toned through Minnesota, singing in the sleet,
   Snowy-furled through cold Dakota, wings the winter wheat.
   Fling it, sow it, East and West, while the frost rides forth!
   Oats and barley sleep and rest! Swing it South and North!
   Sow it where the swallows sing, cane and cotton sleep!
   Strow it on the wild-duck's wing up the Northern steep!
   Husked the corn. Ground the grain. Green the winter wheat!
   

   "Spring-time days, summer ways, verdant leaf and dew
   Thrill with countless-chorded praise. Winter songs are few.
   Winter songs are few.
   Not alone the storm-wind chills—not the stormwind most—
   But the fog along the hills, creeping damp and frost.
   Who shall like the earth and listen, tell the tune her life-time knows,
   Now no dancing tree-tops glisten, now no crystal glory blows,
   Through her lesser days, down her muted ways?
   Let me strow and sing it now, where the wildducks cry,
   Swift arise and answer now, full and proudly, 'I!
   I, the winter wheat, singing in the sleet!
   I will hear her. I will hearken; past the fogs and battling snows
   Bring through hours that dim or darken, what the heart of winter knows;
   Swinging through the Storm-wind's soaring, singing through the ice-cut gale,
   Through the tempests thick, out-pouring over farthest height and swale,
   Through her muted days, down her lesser ways,
   East and West, North and South, deeply sing and call,
   Overland and overland and in and through it all—
   Every dreariness and blast, through it all and to the last!' "
   

   As I rode through twilight's portal, while the winter hours grew long,
   Once the voice of love immortal sang my soul a wayside song.
   Let my day in dark be ended, let the fates at last defeat.
   Down the roads of rapture splendid, I have heard the winter wheat.
   Fling it, sow it, East and West, while the frost rides forth!
   Oats and barley sleep and rest. Swing it South and North!
   

   Sow it where the swallows sing, cane and cotton sleep!
   Strow it on the wild-duck's wing up the Northern steep!
   Husked the corn. Ground the grain. Green the winter wheat!
   

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