Poems (Hoffman)/The Sower's Song

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

THE SOWER'S SONG

Shall I sow the seeds of the briers and weeds
O'er the fertile fields and the grassy meads?
Oh, the thorn and the tare are everywhere!
The world hath enough of weeds.

Shall I scatter the germs of their noxious forms
Where the beautiful blossoms bloom?
Shall I tend them with care, 'till they flourish there,
Must the sweet flowers make them room?

Oh, the weeds grow rank on the river bank,
And the hills are o'ergrown with weeds
By breeze and blast, they are sown broadcast!
Why should I sow their seeds?

No toilsome care must their soil prepare,
They will spring up and flourish, anywhere;
By the stagnant fen, in the lonely glen,
By dusty roads and abodes of men.

But the blossoms sweet and the golden wheat,
Blighted by cold and withered by heat,
Busiest hands their seed must sow;
Patience and labor must bid them grow.

Shall I cage the bird, that your dread has stirred,
By his dismal cry through the darkness heard
Or the vulture, roaming his prey to seek,
With gory talons and bloody beak?

Or the croaking thing, with the ebony wing,
To the sunniest spot in your home bring?
Or prison the cheer, for your tuneful ear,
Of the little bird with the song to sing?

Is crime's dark brood the chosen food
For the intellects of the great and good?
Will the wise deride and cast aside
Life's better things in a search for blood?

Shall I scatter thoughts full of dismal doubts,
And hopeless pinings and dark distrust,
To fall apart, in a human heart,
And spring like weeds from its damp and dust?

Or shall I cull from the beautiful,
The budding hope and the tuneful truth;
Bright flowers to spring, sweet birds to sing,
In the failing heart, immortal youth?

Oh, the thorn and the tare are everywhere!
The world hath enough of doubt and woe;
By breeze and blast, they are sown broadcast
Midst the golden germs that the sowers sow.