The husbandman
Comes early, with the pruning-hooks and shears,
And strips it bare of all its innocent pride
And wandering garlands, and cuts deep and sure,
Unsparing for its tenderness and joy.
And in its loss and pain it wasteth not;
But yields itself with unabated Life,
More perfect under the despoiling hand.
The bleeding limbs are hardened into wood;
The thinned-out bunches ripen into fruit
More full and precious, to the purple prime.
