| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922. |
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| Harvest-Moon: 1914 |
| | | Josephine Preston Peabody |
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| OVER the twilight field, | |
| The overflowing field,— | |
| Over the glimmering field, | |
| And bleeding furrows with their sodden yield | |
| Of sheaves that still did writhe, | 5 |
| After the scythe; | |
| The teeming field and darkly overstrewn | |
| With all the garnered fulness of that noon— | |
| Two looked upon each other. | |
| One was a Woman men called their mother; | 10 |
| And one, the Harvest-Moon. | |
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| And one, the Harvest-Moon, | |
| Who stood, who gazed | |
| On those unquiet gleanings where they bled; | |
| Till the lone Woman said: | 15 |
| “But we were crazed … | |
| We should laugh now together, I and you, | |
| We two. | |
| You, for your dreaming it was worth | |
| A star’s while to look on and light the Earth; | 20 |
| And I, forever telling to my mind, | |
| Glory it was, and gladness, to give birth | |
| To humankind! | |
| Yes, I, that ever thought it not amiss | |
| To give the breath to men, | 25 |
| For men to slay again: | |
| Lording it over anguish but to give | |
| My life that men might live | |
| For this. | |
| You will be laughing now, remembering | 30 |
| I called you once Dead World, and barren thing, | |
| Yes, so we named you then, | |
| You, far more wise | |
| Than to give life to men.” | |
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| Over the field, that there | 35 |
| Gave back the skies | |
| A shattered upward stare | |
| From blank white eyes,— | |
| Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune | |
| Of throbbing clay, but dumb and quiet soon, | 40 |
| She looked; and went her way— | |
| The Harvest-Moon. | |
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