The Furrow And The Hearth

I STRIDE the hill, Sower, Up to the sky ridge, Flinging the seed, Scattering, exultant! Mouthing great rhythms To the long sea-beats On the wide shore, behind The ridge of the hillside. Below in the darkness The slumber of mothers, The cradles at rest, The fire-seed sleeping Deep in white ashes! Give to darkness and sleep, O Sower, O Seer! Give me to the earth With the seed I would enter! Oh, the growth through the silence From strength to new strength; Then the strong bursting forth Against primal forces, To laugh in the sunshine, To gladden the world! II Who will bring the red fire Unto a new hearth? Who will lay the wide stone On the waste of the earth? Who is fain to begin To build day by day To raise up his house Of the moist yellow clay? There's clay for the making Moist in the pit, There are horses to trample The rushes through it. Above where the wild duck Arise up and fly, There one can build To the wind and the sky. There are boughs in the forest To pluck young and green, O'er them thatch of the crop Shall be heavy and clean. I speak unto him Who in dead of the night Sees the red streaks In the ash deep and white; While around him he hears Men stir in their rest, And the stir of the babe That is close to the breast! He shall arise, He shall go forth alone, Lay stone on the earth, And bring fire to stone.