Of all your harvests, those
Are pleasantest that come
Freest: blackberries from
Wild fencerows, strawberries
You happen on in crossing
The green hillsides in June;
Wild cherries and wild grapes,
Sour at first taste, then sweet;
Persimmons and blackhaws
That you gather and eat
On days you walk among
The red and yellow leaves;
And walnuts, hickory nuts
Gathered beneath the trees.
In your wild foragings
The earth feeds you the way
She feeds the beasts and birds.

And all the summer long
You’re putting up more hay;
You clip the pastures, keep
The fences up, repair
Your buildings, milk your cows;
You wean the lambs; you move
The livestock to new grass;
And you must walk the fields
With hoe in hand, to cut
The thistles and the docks.
There is no end to work—
Work done in pleasure, grief,
Or weariness, with ease
Of skill and timeliness,
Or awkwardly or wrong,
Too hurried or too slow.
One job completed shows
Another to be done.
And so you make the farm
That must be daily made
And yearly made, or it
Will not exist. If you
Should go and not return
And none should follow you,
This clarity would be
As if it never was.
But praise, in knowing this,
The Genius of the place,
Whose way forgives your own,
And will resume again
In time, if left alone.
You work always in this
Dear opening between
What was and is to be.

And so you make the farm,
And so you disappear
Into your days, your days

Into the ground. Before
You start each day, the place
Is as it is, and at
The day’s end, it is as
It is, a little changed
By work, but still itself,
Having included you
And everything you’ve done.
And it is who you are,
And you are what it is.
You will work many days
No one will ever see;
Their record is the place.
This way you come to know
That something moves in time
That time does not contain.
For by this timely work
You keep yourself alive
As you came into time,
And as you’ll leave:
God’s dust, God’s breath, a little Light.

To rest, go to the woods
Where what is made is made
Without your thought or work.
Sit down; begin the wait
For small trees to grow big,
Feeding on earth and light.
Their good result is song
The winds must bring, that trees
Must wait to sing, and sing
Longer than you can wait.
Soon you must go. The trees,
Your seniors, standing thus
Acknowledged in your eyes,
Stand as your praise and prayer
Your rest is in this praise
Of what you cannot be
And what you cannot do.
But make your land recall,
In workdays of the fields,
The Sabbath of the woods.
Although your fields must bear
The barbed seed of the Fall,
Though nations yet make war
For madness and for hire,
By work in harmony
With the God-given world
You bring your days to rest,
Remain a living soul.
In time of hate and waste,
Wars and rumors of wars,
Rich armies and poor peace,
Your blessed economy,
Beloved sufficiency
Upon a dear, small place,
Sings with the morning stars.