And there the pickers come, picking for town Those dancing daffodils; all day they pick; Hard-featured women, weather-beaten brown, Or swarthy-red, the colour of old brick. At noon they break their meats under the rick. The smoke of all three farms lifts blue in air As though man’s passionate mind had never suffered there. And sometimes as they rest an old man comes, Shepherd or carter, to the hedgerow-side, And looks upon their gangrel tribe, and hums, And thinks all gone to wreck since master died; And sighs over a passionate harvest-tide Which Death’s red sickle reaped under those hills, There, in the quiet fields among the daffodils. When this most tragic fate had time and place, And human hearts and minds to show it by, Ryemeadows’ Farmhouse was in evil case: Its master, Nicholas Gray, was like to die. He lay in bed, watching the windy sky, Where all the rooks were homing on slow wings, Cawing, or blackly circling in enormous rings. With a sick brain he watched them; then he took Paper and pen, and wrote in straggling hand (Like spider’s legs, so much his fingers shook) Word to the friends who held the adjoining land, Bidding them come; no more he could command His fingers twitching to the feebling blood; He watched his last day’s sun dip down behind the wood, While all his life’s thoughts surged about his brain: Memories and pictures clear, and faces known-- Long dead, perhaps; he was a child again, Treading a threshold in the dark alone. Then back the present surged, making him moan. He asked if Keir had come yet. "No," they said. "Nor Occleve?" "No." He moaned: "Come soon or I’ll be dead." The names like live things wandered in his mind: "Charles Occleve of The Roughs," and "Rowland Keir-- Keir of the Foxholes"; but his brain was blind, A blind old alley in the storm of the year, Baffling the traveller life with "No way here," For all his lantern raised; life would not tread Within that brain again, along those pathways red. Soon all was dimmed but in the heaven one star. "I’ll hold to that," he said; then footsteps stirred. Down in the court a voice said, "Here they are," And one, "He’s almost gone." The sick man heard. "Oh God, be quick," he moaned. "Only one word. Keir! Occleve! Let them come. Why don’t they come? Why stop to tell them that?--the devil strike you dumb. "I’m neither doll nor dead; come in, come in. Curse you, you women, quick," the sick man flamed. "I shall be dead before I can begin. A sick man’s womaned-mad, and nursed and damed." Death had him by the throat; his wrath was tamed. "Come in," he fumed; "stop muttering at the door." The friends came in; a creaking ran across the floor. "Now, Nick, how goes it, man?" said Occleve. "Oh," The dying man replied, "I am dying; past; Mercy of God, I die, I’m going to go. But I have much to tell you if I last. Come near me, Occleve, Keir. I am sinking fast, And all my kin are coming; there, look there. All the old, long dead Grays are moving in the air.