Return In Harvest

Near the wood, girt round with stubble,
One bright patch of corn is standing,
And a man laughs, and the girls there
Laugh with him and hoist their dresses.
On a stubble-blade he chooses
A young farmhand trains his cudgel,
Striking with a grim precision,
I well-screened I think regard them.
 
Then a whistle and a scurry
And the last gold patch is toppling,
And the young man swings his cudgel
And the girls in all directions
 
Flit, and pull their skirts about them,
Laughing with mock screams of terror;
One in my direction flying
Seems as though her fear were real.

She runs still, the rest are turning,
She drops skirts and runs the faster,
Does not scream though she grows paler
As she tops the fence above me.

Pale she is, and her looped tresses
Are dull gold with lights of silver
As she stops and pants beneath the
Lancelight of the rustling branches.



Source: O'Connor, Frank; Three Old Brothers and Other Poems; 1936;
London; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd.; p.20