An Epitaph for a Husbandman

Original Text: 
Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 143-44. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
1He who would start and rise
2    Before the crowing cocks, --
3No more he lifts his eyes,
4    Whoever knocks.
5He who before the stars
6    Would call the cattle home, --
7They wait about the bars
8    For him to come.
9Him at whose hearty calls
10    The farmstead woke again
11The horses in their stalls
12    Expect in vain.
13Busy and blithe and bold
14    He laboured for the morrow, --
15The plough his hands would hold
16    Rusts in the furrow.
17His fields he had to leave,
18    His orchards cool and dim;
19The clods he used to cleave
20    Now cover him.
21But the green, growing things
22    Lean kindly to his sleep, --
23White roots and wandering strings,
24    Closer they creep.
25Because he loved them long
26    And with them bore his part,
27Tenderly now they throng
28    About his heart.
Publication Start Year: 
Publication Notes: 
Cosmopolitan (June 1895).
RPO poem Editors: 
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition: 
RPO 1998.