Richard Monckton Milnes

Crimean Invalid Soldiers Reaping at Aldershot

REAP ye the ripe, ripe corn,
  Ye have reaped the green and the young,
The fruits that were scarcely born,—
  The fibres that just were strung.

Ye have reaped, as the Destinies reap,
  The wit and the worth of Man,
The tears that we vainly weep,
  The deeds that we vainly plan.

Now reap as the generous life
  Of the pregnant Earth commands,
Each seed with a future rife,
  And the work of a thousand hands.