AUTUMN PLOUGHING by MARGARET ELIZABETH MUNSON SANGSTER

MORE than the beauty of summer
Is shed on the hills to-day,
And the fragrant breath of the vintage
Is borne on the winds away,
As, father and son together,
The farmers are guiding the plough;
Deep and straight is the furrow
They set in the green earth now.

"Plough deep," is the old man's counsel,
As they turn the fallow field
That yet shall laugh with the harvest,
And wave with a golden yield.
"Plough deep and straight," and the sturdy
Answer rings back with a will,
As the tilth is ready for sowing
On the sun-swept reach of hill.

I watch, and over my spirit
There wafts an echoed psalm,
Sweet as a thought of our Father,
And full of heaven's balm.
God knows how deep the furrow
Needed by soul of mine,
Ere the stony soul shall quicken
And bloom with fruits divine.

And God who cares for the vintage
When the sap is in the stem,
And God who crowns the summer
With the autumn's diadem,
And God who all the winter
Beholds the world's bread grow,
May be trusted for loving kindness
Though his ploughshare lay me low.

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