No further might the scene unfold,
The gazer's voice could not withhold,
The very rapture made him bold:
He cried aloud, with claspèd hands,
"O happy fields! O happy bands,
Who reap the never-failing lands!

"O master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!

"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car:
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to Thee!"

At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace,--
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.

* * * * *