Before the window sounding green and red.

In the smoke blackened, low hall

The farm boys and maids sit with the meal;

And they pour wine and they break bread.

In the deep silence of midday

Sometimes a meager word is spoken.

The fields glimmer constantly

And the sky leaden and wide.

Grotesquely the glow flickers in the hearth

And a swarm of flies buzz.

The maids listen dim-witted and mute

And the blood hammers their temples.

And sometimes looks meet full of greed,

When animal vapors blow through the room.

Monotonously a farm boy says the prayer

And a cock crows under the door.

And again into the field. A horror seizes

Them often in the roaring bluster of corn

And the scythes swing clanking

Back and forth in a ghostly rhythm.