midnight
For the toil hath been mickle , And ' twixt haysel and harvest ’t is time to be blithe . And what shall the tale be now dancing is over , And kind on the meadow sits maiden by man , And the old man bethinks him of days of the lover , And the warrior remembers the field that he wan ? Shall we tell of the dear days wherein we are dwelling , The best days of our Mother , the cherishing Dale , When all round about us the summer is telling , To ears that may hearken , the heart of the tale ? Shall we sing of these hands and these lips that caress us , And the limbs that sun-dappled lie light here beside , When still in the morning they rise but to bless us , And oft in the midnight our footsteps abide ? O nay , but to tell of the fathers were better , And of how we were fashioned from out of the earth ; Of how the once lowly spurned strong at the fetter ; Of the days of the deeds and beginning of mirth . And then when the feast-tide is done in the morning , Shall we whet the grey sickle that bideth the wheat , Till wan grow the edges , and gleam forth a warning Of the field and the fallow where edges shall meet . And when cometh the harvest , and hook upon shoulder We enter the red wheat from out of the road , We shall sing , as we wend , of the bold and the bolder , And the Burg of their building , the beauteous abode .