The Tenant Farmer's Wife to Her Children During an Autumn Storm - a narrative poem

 

Life is a Struggle (The Golden Knight), Gustav Klimt

The Tenant Farmer's Wife to Her Children During an Autumn Storm

Come closer, little ones, and let me dry your tears
With stories and with songs my mother sang to me
When the thunder like a whip-crack made me fear
That the world was being torn apart piece by piece.

Fear not, my dears, this tempest wind so wild; 
I know who thunders round us like a furious fiend,
Filling all the sky; he is playing like a child:
It is the Harvest Knight, Lord Autumn of the sheaves.

Some years he comes on tiptoe, slow and quiet,
His footsteps tapping lightly on the drumskin leaves, 
But tonight he tore the heavens in a riot
And the golden knight is riding forth to raze and reave.

Atmosphere in near-apocalyptic measure:
Pounding, beating, trampling all our lovely flowers;
Wasting summer's glories with brute pleasure,
He laughs to revel fully in his martial powers.

He laughs, and that's the thunder that you hear, dears,
Alongside mighty hoof-falls of his charger strong, 
Listen as it rolls past, hastening far and near,
Listen! The winds delights to roar its Autumn song.

The Harvest Knight, a golden kin to merry Green,
Revels in both blazing sun and bruised-sky storms;
In him, the mighty ancient elemental means -
Earth, Water, Air, and Fire - are bound in form.

His fearsome destrier of shining golden hues,
Stamping and bit-champing as currents roll and shift,
Is obedient the Golden Knight alone, who
Sometimes, from a fay delight, lets reins slip.

Tonight the horse and rider charge and thunder past,
Furious and reckless on the wild west wind,
But the hectic joy of Autumn, dears, will not last;
King Winter brooks no rival when his reign begins.

The Knight of Gold shall play until his time's done,
Then, like a palmer, lay down arms and take up peace;
Forsake crusading storms and the wind's run,
And in his cassock brown bow to Winter's freeze. 

Remember, loves, as he rides hard all night,
Just yesterday he warmed us all with brazen sun;
Remember, too, the heat of Lady Summer's light,
We thought then Autumn's wind and rain would be well come.

Yes, the trees are furiously shaking,
But they dance! They feel the flames of their inner fire
Rising; Autumn is a charm protective making,
And Nature knows she'll sleep safe through Winter's cursed ire.

So enjoy his blustering play as you lie back down -
Weren't you running wild today through Harvest's fields?
He saw you and he thought he'd have his own round,
After we had taken up his golden yield. 

Then fear not, dears, the fury of this fay knight;
His play is rough but he has filled our shelves and board
With abundance. We can weather Winter's cold might
Through the rich gifts of Harvest, our Autumnal Lord.

Attributed to John Linnell, Harvesting in a stormy landscape