Another field rose high with waving grain; With bended sickles stand the reaper train: Here stretched in ranks the levell’d swarths are found, Sheaves heap’d on sheaves here thicken up the ground. With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gatherers follow, and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn. The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around him rise. A ready banquet on the turf is laid, Beneath an ample oak’s expanded shade. The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare; The reaper’s due repast, the woman’s care.