The Mowing
The clock has struck six,
And the morning is fair,
While the east in red splendor is glowing;
There’s a dew on the grass, and a song in the air—
Let us up and be off to the mowing.
Wouldst know why I wait
Ere the sunlight has crept
O’er the fields where the daisies are growing?
Why all night I’ve kept my own vigils, nor slept?
’Tis to-day is the day of the mowing.
This day and this hour
Maud has promised to tell
What the blush on her cheek was half showing.
If she waits at the lane, I’m to know all is well,
And there’ll be a good time at the mowing.
Maud’s mother has said,
And I’ll never deny,
That a girl’s heart there can be no knowing.
Oh, I care not to live, and I rather would die,
If Maud does not come to the mowing.
What is it I see?
’Tis a sheen of brown hair
In the lane where the poppies are blowing.
Thank God! it is Maud—she is waiting me there,
And there’ll be a good time at the mowing.
Six years have passed by,
And I freely declare
That I scarcely have noticed their going;
Sweet Maud is my wife, with her sheen of brown hair,
And we had a good time at the mowing.
poem by Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers from Harper's, Volume 59, Issue 350 (1879)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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