An empty sickle down the sky.

To soothe his pain, Sleep's tender palm
Laid on his brow its touch of balm,--
His brain received the slumberous calm;
And soon, that angel without name,
Her robe a dream, her face the same,
The giver of sweet visions, came.

She touched his eyes: no longer sealed,
They saw a troop of reapers wield
Their swift blades in a ripened field:
At each thrust of their snowy sleeves,
A thrill ran through the future sheaves,
Bustling like rain on forest-leaves.

They were not brawny men who bowed
With harvest-voices rough and loud,
But spirits moving as a cloud:
Like little lightnings in their hold,
The silver sickles manifold
Slid musically through the gold.

Oh, bid the morning-stars combine
To match the chorus clear and fine
That rippled lightly down the line,--
A cadence of celestial rhyme,
The language of that cloudless clime,
To which their shining hands kept time!