One evening, Palmström,
as between the tall wheat stalks
he was drifting about singing,
finds a musket.

Sorrowing he breaks off his hymn
and sits down among the poppies,
his find
to contemplate.

Fervently he envisions the discouraged one
who threw it into the wheat,
and bemoans
him with all his heart.

Poppies and ears of wheat and bachelor's buttons
his hand wreathes in the meantime
quietly about the barrel,
trigger and butt [of the musket] . . .

And, he leans the carbine,
thus garlanded, against the stone that marks the crossroad,
gently hoping
that the discouraged one,

coming once more along this way,
might see it - and -
(. . . See the moon
large in the East . . .)