Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Reaper and the Flowers

{{sc|There}} is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,

Bearded grain

Wheat and barley have bristles (beards) when mature—Death harvests adults. The flowers are children.

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

Give them all back

Death promises resurrection. This is consolation poetry—he's reframing child mortality as temporary separation.

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;

Lord of Paradise

Christ as employer. Death isn't the villain—he's a servant gathering flowers for God's garden.

It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.
"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where He was once a child.

Where He was once

Christ's incarnation. Children remind God of his own earthly childhood—that's why he wants them in heaven.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

The mother gave

First human character appears in stanza 6. The whole poem has been building to her acceptance.

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.
Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'T was an angel visited the green earth,

'T was an angel

Death transforms into an angel in the final reveal. The sickle-wielding Reaper was divine mercy all along.

And took the flowers away.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Why Longfellow Wrote This

CONTEXT Longfellow wrote this in 1838, after his first wife Mary died following a miscarriage. Child mortality was catastrophically common—in 1840s America, nearly half of all children died before age five. Parents needed poems like this.

The poem's job is theological reframing. It takes the medieval image of Death the Reaper (Grim Reaper with scythe) and reverses it. Death has "tearful eyes" and kisses the flowers. He "smiled." He's gentle. The poem argues: what looks like cruelty is actually God gathering children for a better garden.

Notice the structure of consolation: stanzas 1-5 are Death's perspective (building sympathy), stanza 6 is the mother's response (modeling acceptance), stanza 7 is the narrator's conclusion (telling you how to feel). You're being guided from horror to acceptance in 28 lines.

The Flower Metaphor's Work

Longfellow uses two harvests: grain (adults) and flowers (children). The flowers "grow between" the grain—children among adults in a community. But here's the key move: flowers are more valuable than grain. Death says "Shall I have naught that is fair?" He wants beauty, not just sustenance.

The transplanting metaphor does heavy lifting. Flowers aren't destroyed—they're "transplanted by my care" to "fields of light." This is horticulture, not execution. Any 19th-century reader who'd moved plants from garden to garden knew: transplanting requires care, causes temporary wilting ("drooping leaves"), but leads to better growth.

"Sacred blossoms wear"—the dead children become decorations on saints' robes. They're not just alive in heaven; they're ornamental, precious, displayed. It's a status promotion: from wildflowers between grain stalks to adornments in Paradise.