Carol of Harvest, A

[Music] [Music] e [Music] [Music] a song of the good green grass a song No More of city streets a song of farms a song of the soil of fields a song with a smell of sundried hay where the Nimble pict handle a pitchfork a song tasting of new wheat and a fresh husk [Music] maze [Music] now I a while return to thee Oh soil of autumn field felds reclining on thy breast giving myself to thee answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart tuning a verse for thee the spirit of America clothes itself in the mind and voice of Walt Whitman the good gray poet Whitman was born on Long Island in 1819 a country school teacher at 17 a village editor in his early 20s a carpenter a Wanderer in the South and West a government clerk an Army Nurse during the Civil War a great reader of books a devotee of Opera and lectures but most of all in his own words he drank deeply from the lore of powerful uneducated persons paralyzed in 1873 he lived for 19 years in an Humble Home in Camden New Jersey where he died in 1892 the Carol of harvest written in 1867 breathes his love of America's spacious fields and his undying faith of the future of America ever upon this stage is enacted God's calm annual drama gorgeous process songs of birds Sunrise that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul the woods the stalwart trees the Slender tapering trees the flowers the grass the lilyput countless armies of the grass the heat the showers the measureless pastures the scenery of the Snows the winds free Orchestra the stretching light hung roof of clouds the clear Cerulean and the bulging silvery fringes the high D ating Stars the Placid beckoning Stars the moving flocks and herds the Plains and emerald Meadows the shows of all the varied lands and all the growths and [Music] products [Music] Fen America today Thou Art all over set in births and joys thou gronest with thy riches thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment thou laughfest loud with the ache of great possessions as the rain falls from heaven and the vapors rise from Earth so have the precious values Fallen upon thee and risen out of thee thou lucky Mistress of the Tranquil barns a merad Twining life like the interlacing vines binds all thy vast domain thou Prairie Dame that sest in the middle and lookest out upon thy world and lookest east and lookest west dispens that by a word give us a thousand miles that give us a million farms and missst nothing thou Envy of the globe thou Miracle loud oh my throat and clear oh Soul the season of thanks and the voice of full yielding the chant of joy and power for boundless [Music] [Music] fertility [Music] all tilled and untilled Fields expand before me I see the true Arenas of my race or first or last man's innocent and strong Arenas Toyon Heroes harvest the products toil on Heroes toil well handle the weapons well America mother of all here as ever watches you well pleased America thou beholdest over the fields of the West those crawling Monsters the human Divine inventions the labor saving implements behold us moving in every direction imbued as with life the revolving hay rake the steam power reaping machines and the horsepower machines the engines Thrashers of grain and cleansers of grain well separating the Nimble work of the patent Pitchfork beneath I look all maternal with these and else and with their own strong hands the heroes Harvest [Music] [Music] with [Music] under thee only they harvest even but a whisp of hay under thy great face only harvest the wheat gather the hay to its Myriad mouths in the odorous tranquil barns oats to the bins or ought that ripens in all these states or north or south under the beaming sun and under [Music] thee [Music]