Red are the hands of the Reapers,

And the harvest is so white!

Red are the feet that are treading

The threshing floors by night:

And, on the young brows, dripping

As with the dews of morn,

Deep rose-red are the woundings,

Like scars of a crown of thorn.

Tired, so many, with reaping, --

Tired with treading the grain,

Still they lie, in their sleeping,

Low in the Valley of Pain, --

Never again to be quaffing

The joy of life, like wine;

Never again to be laughing

In Youth's glad hour divine.

Birds shall sing in the branches,

Children dance by the shore;

But they who shared the red reaping

Shall come back never more.

Let whoso can forget them,

Walking life's noisy ways;

We who have looked on the Reapers

Go quietly, all our days.