Ploughman Poem by Declan O'Reilly

I tend the fields until they are ready;
All day I turn over the soft soil,
All day I keep the horses going steady,
Now my work is almost done, my toil,
Upon the awakened land is almost still,
Only the seed do I have left to spread,
Seed that in autumn will become the crop
That I bring in. My days know no dread,
Though I tire from time to time, I do not drop;
In summer I shall sit upon the porch and sway,
And gaze out there at the straw man,
That keeps the circling flocks at bay;
And I am as content as they that pan;
And you may ask if I of this ever tire,
If this life ever humored my mind,
And I shall say the same till I expire,
No other life did I ever seek to find,
It is all I know and when I think it through,
I have lived it unchanged nigh on seventy years,
And my wife watches over me as wives do,
And I have no cause for bitter tears.