Ballads : patriotic & romantic / by Clinton Scollard [electronic text]

THE SCYTHE TREE

FARMER JOHNSON strode from the field With an eager step that was long and lithe; The summer sun, like a blazing shield, Burned on high, in the hazy sky. A forkèd bough, as he hastened by, Seemed a fitting place for his scythe. So he swung it up in the balsam tree; "There let it hang till I come!" said he.

Then he homeward hied him, humming a tune, But he heard a word at the farmstead gate Under the fervid heat of the noon, A ringing call to each volunteer, For all the land was alive with fear, Doubt and fear for the country's fate. So Farmer Johnson shouldered his gun, And left his scythe to the rain and sun.

Fifty years have sped since then, Fifty hastening years and more; By southern wood and brake and fen Faithful he fought, and in gallant wise, Fought and died, and now he lies By the far off Carolina shore,

Where the long trades blow, and the grasses wave Over the loam of his sunken grave.

"There let it hang till I come!" he said Of the scythe he left in the balsam tree, And they let it hang, as the fleet days fled, Till the small bole, fed by the kindly earth, Clasped the scythe with a mothering girth. To-day whoever so will may see The starry emblem of freedom flow Over the tip of the scythe below.

He gave his all, and he never came, He that was strong and young and lithe, But the balsam boughs seem to name his name, Name his name both late and long To the tuneful beat of a summer song, To the undulant sway-song of the scythe; And the banner swings to the rhythmic bars, The banner he loved, the Stripes and Stars.