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I WENT to
turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew
before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade
so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I
looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened
for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his
way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had
been,--alone,
'As all must be,' I said within my
heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'
But
as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless
wing a 'wildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories
grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of
yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go
round and round,
As where some flower lay withering
on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could
see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I
thought of questions that have no reply,
And would
have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned
first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of
flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the
scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had
bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
The mower in
the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to
flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of
ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the
brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me
hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long
scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit
kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no
more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his
aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With
one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
'Men work
together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they
work together or apart.'
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