THE harvest-field of Boaz. Like a host Drawn up for battle stands its yellow grain, Rustling its own sweet music. Brawny men Are there to steal its beauty—and the noise Of the keen sickle blends with random songs. Close on their track the agile binders haste To form the lately fallen grain in sheaves, Which throng the field with golden monuments To Industry and Labor. Glance again— Woman upon the field, the sweet and frail! Like a young lily in a waste of thorns, So she among the workmen. See! she bends— And with a graceful, stainless hand collects The single stalks that else would perish there. ’Tis gentle Ruth, the meek and beautiful, Around whose name are wreathed the rarest flowers Of generous remembrance—whom, though years Counted by centuries have come and gone, Woman delights to love and man to praise. Oh! who can gaze upon her slender form, Intent upon its labor, or can catch The mild expression of her lovely face, Nor feel his veins thrill deeper! Filial Ruth! While that blest page endures that chronicles Thy winning history for after times, Love shall embalm thy name in benisons, And hearts shall be thy home! Another scene— Behold before thine eye a mightier field— Th’ unmeasured, the illimitable Past! Yonder, well-busied with her ceaseless toil, Lo! MEMORY—THE GLEANER. Not like her, The gentle Moabitess, laboring for love, But as another Nemesis in look and work. One gleaned to succor life—affection led Her footsteps to the field and cheered her toil— The other gleans for justice—hoarding up A store of testimony in her garner-place, For judgment and for Heaven. Pause awhile— View her vocation and its circumstance— Give wing to Thought—expand Reflection’s sails— And thy salvation may be thy reward. She stretcheth forth her hand and gleaneth. Day And cheerless night are each to her the same; A stranger to vicissitude and change, She gathers up material for Heaven. Mark what is in her grasp—lo! thrifty tares, Old, unrepented sins thou hast forgotten— And thistles, too, thine unforgiven wrongs— And worthless weeds, thy lost and squandered hours— And flowers, thy deeds of common charity, Which Pity’s ardent hot-bed forced to shoot, Not Duty’s tardy but unerring soil— Life’s sweet embellishments, which make it fair, Yet have no signal claim to merit—these Were but unwelcome witnesses when thou Art summoned for thy last account to meet With thine accuser, Memory—and these, If these were _all_ to testify of thee, Would seal thy doom with rayless misery: It is alone the rich, ripe, perfect grain Of Goodness and of Virtue that can win For thee the taintless wealth of Paradise. . . . . . . . . .