The Source
Beautiful writing about delicious British food. Articles, comments and musings from our contributors.
The Harvest
©Henry Birtles, 31st July 2013
Read by the actor Damien Lewis in Love British Food’s Harvest Service
in Westminster Abbey in 2013
Let’s gather as a band of one, in symphony across the land
To thank our Lord for Harvest reaped and gratefully as one let’s stand
To think of those, for all their toil who’ve readied plough, who’ve nurtured soil
The farmers in the fields, the cold; the hardened hands, the fens, the wold
So many aspects of a life, a challenge most will never know
For we in houses snugly sleep, whilst in the biting winds and snow
The men and women of their earth prepare a ground for springtime seeds
That one day will produce our bread, our milk, our food, our daily needs
And through this nation memories walk, a depth of image ever strong
Of distant days and innocence; of man and Shire Horse ploughing on
Of wheatsheaves standing in the sun and laughing land girls coming home
The orchards, meadows, hedgerow birds; the pitchfork and the haystack dome
Though now they rest in picture form, the people, beasts and tools long gone
The land they worked is constant still; the boundaries, fields, the far off hill
The skylark’s song remains the same; a trout will rise below the mill
For all the romance of these scenes, look not through glass of tinted rose
Ask farming people what it’s like and though the job is one they chose
It takes its toll; the troughs are long and cold and deep
The flattened barley, missing sheep and so much more that blights their show
But on and on and on they go, until that day of days has come
The tractor’s parked, the combine’s quiet; the crop is in, the Harvest done
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