Path Through the Wheat. — ca. 1867 —

The hillside’s tidal waves of yellow-green Break downward into full-grown stalks of wheat In which a peasant, shouldering his hoe Passes along a snaking narrow path -- A teeming place through which his hard thighs press And where his head just barely stays above The swaying grain, drunken in abundance, Farm buildings almost floating on the swells Beyond which sea gulls gliding white in air Fly down on out of sight to salty fields, Taking the channel fish off Normandy, A surfeit fit for Eden...