Springtide of spirits, at the Altar rail:
A mystic Sowing, in the morning light
A gentleness of Love that yet can smite
As on the granary floor the threshing-flail.
O happy soil! O terror beyond wail,
If never sheaf the Sowing should requite,
And time between were busied but to blight
Good will, which only can make God avail!

Till souls be corn and vintage of His feast,
As He was aye of ours, how grave and slow
Like any weary husbandman, a Priest
Fills the long furrow, treading to and fro!
And there my clod of earth, the last, the least,
Vows that pure Seed some harvest, ere the snow.