Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONG OF THE HOP FIELDS, by INA DRAPER DEFOE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONG OF THE HOP FIELDS, by                    
First Line: A harvest moon rose gracefully ...
Last Line: Where dawn revealed a wall of green the night found string and props.
Subject(s): Fields; Pastures; Meadows; Leas


A harvest moon rose gracefully and rode the morning sky,
It chased the lonesome fog away and flung its banner high.
The fragrant peach, the purple grape, each heard the lustful call;
The leaves curled up, the apples fell, the earth prepared for Fall.
The hop fields offered rich, green balls that quickly turned to gray
When stripped from vines that tumbled down upon the clods and clay.
The tall, red kilns where growling beasts with yawning, hungry jaws
That dried the hope and pressed the bales with heavy, iron paws.
With dirty faces, clothes in rags and fingers stiff and sore,
The pickers cursed, they sweat and toiled, they laughed and cursed some more.

You laugh like a vixen, you swear like a man,
Your body is dirty, your life without plan;
Oh poor, little girl picking hops.
A tent is your shelter, the ground is your bed;
The sweetness of girlhood has somehow been shed;
Your parents are fruit-tramps who slave for mere bread,
Oh, poor, little girl, picking hops.

Hey, Wop, what's the reason for this sudden mirth;
This song that comes lilting across the hot earth,
A musical, rollicking tune?
With white teeth and red lips and black, curling hair;
Spaghetti and garlic and devil-may-care,
The hop fields will miss you when you are not there,
With musical, rollicking tune.

What queer trick of fate turned this scholar to toil,
Whose mind is a store house that nothing can spoil,
Old man with the peering, blue eyes?
He quotes from great masters and strips the long vines;
He speaks of the Romans, of Burns and his lines;
Of Buddha and Darwin and modern assigns;
Old man with the peering, blue eyes.

Your skin is like copper, your hair blackest night;
Your breasts ready fountains, your eyes pools of light;
Big squaw with the sober papoose.
Your waist line is missing, your garments are torn;
Your colors are brilliant, your face dull and worn;
But five hundred pounds of ripe hops you have shorn
Big squaw with the sober papoose.

A harvest moon rose gracefully and touched the world with gold;
The trampled vines, the huddled tents, the pickers, young and old.
The campfires gleamed, the mists crept in to camouflage the dirt.
The Wop sang on, the old man read, the girl nursed hands that hurt.
The great kilns tainted all the air with sulphured, drying hops,
Where dawn revealed a wall of green the night found string and props.





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