Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SPIRIT OF THE WHEAT, by EDWARD ABRAM UFFINGTON VALENTINE


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SPIRIT OF THE WHEAT, by                    
First Line: Such times as windy moods do stir
Last Line: She fades into the wrinkling heat.
Subject(s): Wheat


SUCH times as windy moods do stir
The foamless billows of the wheat,
I glimpse the floating limbs of her
In instant visions melting sweet.

A milky shoulder's dip and gleam,
Or arms that clasp upon the air,
An upturned face's rosy dream,
Half blinded by the sunlit hair.

A haunting mermaid mid the swell
And rapture of that summer sea;
A siren of elusive spell,
Born of the womb of mystery, --

That, airy-limbed, swims fancy free,
Glad in the summer's perfect prime,
Full-veined with life's felicity
And faith that knows no winter-time.

At eve, when firefly lustre burns
On that green flood like mirrored stars,
Against the hush her faint voice yearns,
Breathed to a light harp's happy bars.

Till sinks at last in sunset slow
Midsummer's long, luxurious day,
And amber-red the ripe waves glow,
Ah, then it is she slips away!

For with the blighting dog-star's blaze,
The reapers wade within the wheat,
And as they work in harvest ways,
What amorous sights their vision cheat!

For lo, upon some eddying wash
Or hollow of the wind-swept grain,
Her wafted fingers foam-like flash,
Her laughing body drifts amain.

It is the sylph's divine farewell;
A sighing ebbs along the wheat;
Borne onward by a golden swell,
She fades into the wrinkling heat.





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