The Scythe Tree

Farmer Johnson strode from the field
With an eager step that was long and lithe;
The summer sun, like a blazing shield,
Burned on high, in the hazy sky.
A forkèd bough, as he hastened by,
Seemed a fitting place for his scythe.
So he swung it up in the balsam tree;
"There let it hang till I come!" said he.

Then he homeward hied him, humming a tune,
But he heard a word at the farmstead gate
Under the fervid heat of the noon,
A ringing call to each volunteer,
For all the land was alive with fear,
Doubt and fear for the country's fate.
So Farmer Johnson shouldered his gun,
And left his scythe to the rain and sun.

Fifty years have sped since then,
Fifty hastening years and more;
By southern wood and brake and fen
Faithful he fought, and in gallant wise,
Fought and died, and now he lies
By the far off Carolina shore,
Where the long trades blow, and the grasses wave
Over the loam of his sunken grave.

"There let it hang till I come!" he said
Of the scythe he left in the balsam tree,
And they let it hang, as the fleet days fled,
Till the small bole, fed by the kindly earth,
Clasped the scythe with a mothering girth.
To-day whoever so will may see
The starry emblem of freedom flow
Over the tip of the scythe below.

He gave his all, and he never came,
He that was strong and young and lithe,
But the balsam boughs seem to name his name,
Name his name both late and long
To the tuneful beat of a summer song,
To the undulant sway-song of the scythe;
And the banner swings to the rhythmic bars,
The banner he loved, the Stripes and Stars.