You don’t reap—
really—
do you—
what you’ve
truly sown?Am I blind or batty?—
others seem to know!Animals eat it,
and others keep it,
and some self-seeds,
and some are weeds.You might reap some
of what you’d sown,
or maybe others
of your own home;You may reap straw
from what you’ve shown,
or others take it
as though their own;And some of what is surely wild—
that was blown—not sown—
into your own child.And some of what is grown
is your own fruit;
and some of it is lost—
to moulded decay,
or to frost, or strays—And a lot of it is eaten
by birds who pray;
they don’t prey on your children—
they just eat words in season.And some are like heathen,
and others of reason—
being well-meaning mates
who jeopardize your stakes.They see your mistakes—
or that’s how they see—
and come in on foot
to correct the Old Took.They mistook me for Bill
(the donkey uphill),
and ripped out my stakes
that made standing hay safe.And standing it would have been—
with heads green in full seed:
thirty, sixty, and hundredfold—
if the Took in me got to very Old.But alas—
the stakes rot on the ground,
beside laying hay, as I have found,
with stalks that bent from all the weight,
without supports from their Old Mate.Their heads drop down
with what has grown;
in soil they sit
with what I had sown!I didn’t get to reap my crop—
though much is leaping on the stop;
beasts took some before the rains,
and some still lies there in the stains.And some is stolen,
and some hasn’t shown,
and some self-seeds,
and some of it is weeds.They are of my own—
the four seeds I have sown—
into this soil of unknown tares;
and night and day
I could not be there—And they have grown as wheat—
and are wet with my prayers—
and whether I sleep,
or go out to work,
others are working;
and I am observing:They are reaping
my harvest of cares,
and I am being shown
what else has been sown;
what else has been there,
and has grown on its own.
