Lyric Poem · Nature
The Reaper and the Flowers
1There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
2And, with his sickle keen,
3He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
4And the flowers that grow between.
5"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
6"Have naught but the bearded grain?
7Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
8I will give them all back again."
9He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
10He kissed their drooping leaves;
11It was for the Lord of Paradise
12He bound them in his sheaves.
13"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
14The Reaper said, and smiled;
15"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
16Where he was once a child.
17"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
18Transplanted by my care,
19And saints, upon their garments white,
20These sacred blossoms wear."
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“The Reaper and the Flowers” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/the-reaper-and-the-flowers
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Reaper and the Flowers
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Length
- 28 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Love, Death & Loss
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 28 lines · 7 quatrains
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- PoetryDBThe Reaper and the Flowers by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 d80bf069830d23a4…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.