NURSERY RHYME FOR HARVEST.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20790, 25 February 1933, Page 13

NURSERY RHYME FOR HARVEST.

Copper, copper, and gold, and browned, The fields of wheat are ripe and ready; The oaten crops are silver-crowned, And their shining wands are copperruddy.

Hurry, hurry, for autumn turns Back to winter, and will not tarry; Plentiful treasure to fill the barus, And fill up the sacks, come, cut and carry.

Flutter, flutter your wheeling stave?, Reapers and binders; clatter and babble, Bow down the swaths, and bundle the sheaves, And line them along the honeycomb stubble.

Pretty! pretty I the tawny stooks, . Nattily tilted. Sunlit at even, They might be the tents of Michael's troops Pitched in the shining""*fields of heaven.

Rumble, rumble, labouring wheels, To and fro; now, up and tumble The tidy bunches, then, heel to heels, Crown to crowns, stack up stout castle.

Tower, tower, high threshing-flail; . Humming engine, it is your hour; Feed the hopper, and hoard the spoil, Heap the straw to a golden bower.

Chatter, chatter, you sparrow-tribes, Squabble and scatter, pick and prattle; Carol, larks, to tbe friendly skies; Grasshopper, twirl your silver rattle.

Follow, follow, you gulls from the sea, With joyful screams that sound like sorrow; Ploughing's begun in the fields on the lea, Follow the team, and rifle ths furrow.

Copper, copper, and silver, and gold Shorn away now, and the fields forsaken; Bountiful treasure, measured and told, Carried away, and sold for a token. ...

Broken! broken! the lovely round. The token is lacking! With black spell, woven • By witches' art, the world is bound! With hell's ice the wheels are frozen!

Pity, pity the wits of man! He can plough the soil, ahd build great cities, And he can ponder, and he can plan, But his mind is blinded by the witches.

Mutter, mutter, the market's lost', And lie cannot see the end of the matter, And he can gather, and count the cost, And he can clutch, but lie cannot scatter! '

Plenty, for each and all, One granary gorged, the other empty, To what dark power are wc in thrall That men should starve in the midst of plenty?

Folly! folly! can it be gain That another has lost? And we not be sorry, And we not bleed, when the stranger is slain 1 ? This is the' blindness, this is the follr.

Copper, copper, and iron, and lead —■ Must these be sown along earth's acres, And cannon echo, and fields run red, Or the nations be fed by peacemakers f

Teacher, teacher, can you not tell, Was there a preacher, was there :i singer Who knew the word that will break the spell And loose the wheels? Any lightbringer

To show it? Has anyone heard the sound Of the magic word ? Knew not a poet The secret that makes the world go round, And moves the stars? AVc do not know it.

Tell us the token, tell us the word, That the spell be broken, and stayed the sorrow; That to-morrow we know how to feed the world, And what seed to sow in the spring furrow.

Copper, copper, and silver, and gold— Daily bread. A little token. Gathered and given, bought and sold, For earth's children, growing old; Let the word be said, and the loaf • broken. —E.H.

It is no"; generally known that Mr Bernard Shaw has a Boswell. His name is Archibald Henderson. About 30 years ago—he was then a raw young American from the North Carolina hills—ho proposed himself for the task by mail, his principal testimonial being his photograph. Mr Shaw accepted, the first "authorised" biography appearing in 1911. Mr Henderson'has now brought his work up-to-date with ''Bernard Shaw: Playboy and Prophet," a volume of 872 pages.

In April the Yale University Press will publish Legends of Angria: From the Early Writings of Charlotte Bronte, edited by Farnie E. Ratchford in collaboration with William Clyde Do Vane. The volume will contain throe short novels and a narrative poem, all at present unpublished, with illustrations by BramweJl Bronte.

Mr David Garnett has written an historical novel about the colonisation of Virginia. It has the (for Mr Garnett) startling title, "Pocohontas: The Nonpareil of Virginia."