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| IN the land of Bethlehem Judah | |
| Let us linger, let us wander; | |
| Ephrath’s sorrow, Rachel’s pillar, | |
| Lieth in the valley yonder; | |
| And the yellow barley harvest | 5 |
| Floods it with a golden glory. | |
| Let us back into the old time, | |
| Dreaming of her tender story, | |
| Of her true heart’s strong devotion, | |
| From beyond the Dead Sea water, | 10 |
| From the heathen land of Moab— | |
| Mahlon’s wife, and Mara’s daughter. | |
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| On the terebinth and fig-tree | |
| Suns of olden time are shining, | |
| And the dark leaf of the olive | 15 |
| Scarcely shows its silver lining; | |
| For still noon is on the thicket, | |
| Where the blue-neck’d pigeons listen | |
| To their own reproachful music; | |
| And the red pomegranates glisten. | 20 |
| As a queen a golden circlet, | |
| As a maid might wear a blossom, | |
| So the valley wears the cornfields | |
| Heaving on her fertile bosom: | |
| And the round grey hills stand o’er them, | 25 |
| All their terraced vineyards swelling, | |
| Like the green waves of a forest, | |
| Up to David’s royal dwelling. | |
| |
| Lo! the princely-hearted Boaz | |
| Moves among his reapers slowly, | 30 |
| And the widow’d child of Moab | |
| Bends behind the gleaners lowly; | |
| Gathering, gleaning as she goeth | |
| Down the slopes, and up the hollows, | |
| While the love of old Naomi, | 35 |
| Like a guardian angel, follows; | |
| And he speaketh words of kindness, | |
| Words of kindness calm and stately, | |
| Till he breaks the springs of gladness | |
| That lay cold and frozen lately; | 40 |
| And the love-flowers, that had faded | |
| Deep within her bosom lonely, | |
| Slowly open as he questions, | |
| Soon for him to blossom only,— | |
| When that spring shall fill with music, | 45 |
| Like an overflowing river, | |
| All his homestead, and those flowers | |
| Bloom beside his hearth for ever. | |
| Mother of a line of princes, | |
| Wrought into that race’s story, | 50 |
| Whom the Godhead, breaking earthward, | |
| Mark’d with an unearthly glory. | |
| |
| Still he walks among the reapers: | |
| The long day is nearly over, | |
| And the lonely mountain partridge | 55 |
| Seeks afar his scanty cover; | |
| And the flocks of wild blue pigeons, | |
| That had glean’d behind the gleaner, | |
| Find their shelter in the thicket; | |
| And the cloudless sky grows sheener | 60 |
| With a sudden flush of crimson, | |
| Steeping in a fiery lustre | |
| Every sheaf-top in the valley, | |
| On the hill-side every cluster. | |
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| Slowly, slowly fade, fair picture, | 65 |
| Yellow lights and purple shadows, | |
| On the valley, on the mountain, | |
| And sweet Ruth among the meadows. | |
| Yet delay, true heart, and teach us, | |
| Pausing in thy matron beauty, | 70 |
| Care of elders, love of kindred, | |
| All unselfish thought and duty. | |
| Linger, Boaz, noble-minded! | |
| Teach us, haughty and unsparing, | |
| Tender care for lowlier station, | 75 |
| Kindly speech, and courteous bearing. | |
| Still each softest, loveliest colour, | |
| Shrine the form beloved and loving, | |
| Heroine of our hearts’ first poem, | |
| Through our childhood’s dreamland moving; | 80 |
| When the great old Bible open’d, | |
| And a pleasant pastoral measure, | |
| As our mothers read the story, | |
| Fill’d our infant hearts with pleasure. | |
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