Read "Mummy Wheat" by Edith Nesbit online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
LAID close to Death, these many thousand years, / In this small seed Life hid herself and smiled; / So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled, / Set free the grain -- and lo! the sevenfold ears!
Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word, / Under blue canopy they hold their state: / For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait / Through all the centuries of hope deferred?
What could they know who laid the seed with Death / Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned? / Love -- since Life parts us -- lend my hand your hand / And look with me into the eyes of faith.
For here between your hand and mine there lies / A little seed we trust to Death to keep / Through unimagined centuries of sleep / Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.
Our harvest waits us. Who knows where or how, / What worlds away, wrapped in what coil of pain? / But Life shall bid us pluck gold sevenfold grain / Grown from the love she bids us bury now.