The Sower, 1850

Jean-François Millet

oil on canvas

40" x 32 1/2"
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

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The Sower

Written after seeing Millet´s painting of this title

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Soon will the lonesome cricket by the stone

Begin to hush the night; and lightly blown

Field fragrances will fill the fading blue --

Old furrow-scents that ancient Eden knew.

Soon in the upper twilight will be heard

The winging whisper of a homing bird.

Who is it coming on the slant brown slope,

Touched by the twilight and her mournful hope --

Coming with hero step, with rhythmic swing,

Where all the bodily motions weave and sing?

The grief of the ground is in him, yet the power

Of Earth to hide the furrow with the flower.

He is the stone rejected, yet the stone

Whereon is built metropolis and throne.

Out of his toil come all their pompous shows,

Their purple luxury and plush repose!

The grime of this bruised hand keeps tender white

The hands that never labor, day nor night.

His feet that know only the field's rough floors

Send lordly steps down echoing corridors.

Yea, this vicarious toiler at the plow

Gives that fine pallor to my lady's brow

And idle armies with their boom and blare.

Flinging their foolish glory on the air --

He hides their nakedness, he gives them bed.

And by his alms their hungry mouths are fed.

Not his lurching of an aimless clod.

For with the august gesture of a god --

A gesture that is question and command --

He hurls the bread of nations from his hand;

And in the passion of the gesture flings

His fierce resentment in the face of kings.

This is the Earth-god of the latter day.

Treading with solemn joy the upward way;

A lusty god that in some crowning hour

Will hurl Grey Privilege from the place of power.

These are the inevitable steps that make

Unreason tremble and Tradition shake.

This is the World-Will climbing to its goal,

Democracy whose sure insurgent stride

Jars kingdoms to their ultimate stone of pride.

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Edwin Markham, (1852-1940)

Lincoln and Other Poems

New York, 1913, Doubleday.

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For more information on the painting:

http://www.mfa.org/