Sonnet ("I have served Thee...")

ELDER OLSON

SONNET

I have served Thee; give me mine hire, O Lord.

Thy seed I planted; Thine the grain to be:

Behold the hollow husk, the blackened gourd;

Fools, affluent, mock; Thy Self goes mocked in me.

Why gavest Thou me this bitter grace, to sow,

No fruits intended? No especial thing,

As grain cloud-grown; recalled frost; virtuous snow;

Or winter warmed, I ask; but spring in spring,

Winter in wintry season.-Invisible

Turner of seasons! Artificer of storms! Thou! Hear, O, behold:

Pied fields lift flourishing; lambs leap; orchards, alight, shine

Aloft with leaved fruit, in the lands not thine;

Thy boughs stand birdless on the summer hill;

Thy lambs lie stiffening in the summer fold.

Elder Olson