Love and Labour

At noon he seeks a grassy place
Beneath the hedgerow from the heat;
His wife sits by, with happy face,
And makes his homely dinner sweet.

Upon her lap their baby lies,
Rosy and plump and stout of limb —
With two great blue unwinking eyes
Of stolid wonder watching him.

The trees are swooning in the heat;
No bird has heart for song or flight;
The fiery poppy in the wheat
Droops, and the blue sky aches with light.

He empties dish, he empties can;
He coaxes baby till she crows;
Then rising up a strengthened man,
He blithely back to labour goes.

His hammer clinks through glare and heat —
With little thought and well content
He toils and splits for rustic feet
Fragments of some old continent.

Homeward he plods, his travail o'er,
Through sunset lanes, past fragrant farms,
Till — glimpse of heaven! — his cottage-door
Frames baby in her mother's arms.