<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Reapers</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Red</span> are the hands of the Reapers,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And the harvest is so white!</p><p class="line">Red are the feet that are treading</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The threshing floors by night:</p><p class="line">And, on the young brows, dripping</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As with the dews of morn,</p><p class="line">Deep rose-red are the woundings,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Like scars of a crown of thorn.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Tired, so many, with reaping, --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Tired with treading the grain,</p><p class="line">Still they lie, in their sleeping,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Low in the Valley of Pain, --</p><p class="line">Never again to be quaffing</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The joy of life, like wine;</p><p class="line">Never again to be laughing</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In Youth's glad hour divine.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Birds shall sing in the branches,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Children dance by the shore;</p><p class="line">But they who shared the red reaping</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shall come back never more.</p><p class="line">Let whoso can forget them,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Walking life's noisy ways;</p><p class="line">We who have looked on the Reapers</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Go quietly, all our days.</p></div><p class="byline">-- Lauchlan Maclean Watt.</p><p> France, 1916. </p><span class="right">(Chaplain of the Force.)</span></body></html> · Great War