Class 8 English Chapter 11: Harvest Hymn

What a hymn is

A hymn is a song of praise, usually sung to a god and usually sung together. That last part matters here, because this poem is printed as voices rather than as verses: men’s voices, then women’s, then all of them. It is written to be performed by a crowd, not read silently by one person.

When this one would be sung

The setting is a village at harvest time. Nothing in the poem names a date, and it does not need to: the fields have been reaped, the fruit is in, and the people have gathered to give thanks for it. India keeps many harvest festivals, and the hymn would fit any of them.

The shape of the poem

Four stanzas, and three groups of singers. The men take the first two, addressed to the sun and to the rain. The women take the third, addressed to the Earth. And everybody takes the fourth, addressed to the lord of the universe. The arrangement is part of the meaning.

Stanza one: the sun

The first stanza calls on Surya. He is the lord of the lotus and the lord of the harvest, and the poem calls him bright and munificent, which means very generous. The title lord of the morn fixes him as the power of the morning, which is when a day’s work in a field begins.

What the sun is thanked for

Two things, and the hymn says them in the same breath. The bounty of the sun prospered the sowing, and the same bounty nurtured the corn. Bounty means generous giving. So the sun is thanked for the start of the crop and for its growing, which is the whole season in one line.

What the men bring him

They bring songs and garlands as tribute, and the hymn describes the offering twice over: the gold of the fields, and the gold of the fruit. Gold here is not metal. It is the colour of ripe grain and ripe fruit, and it carries the idea of worth as well as colour.

Mellowing radiance

Surya is hailed as the giver of mellowing radiance. Radiance is glow or brilliance, and to mellow is to ripen or soften. So the phrase describes light that does not merely shine but brings fruit to readiness. It is the most precise thing in the stanza.

Stanza two: the rain

The second stanza turns to Varuna. He is the lord of the rainbow and the lord of the main, which is an old word for the sea, and the poem calls him great and beneficent. Beneficent means kind, and a rainbow is a good sign to open a verse about rain.

What the rain is thanked for

Mercy, twice. The mercy of Varuna cherished the furrows, which are the trenches a plough cuts, and that same mercy fostered the grain. Notice the choice of word. The sun gives bounty and the rain gives mercy, because rain can fail and the hymn knows it.

What the men bring the rain

Thanks and garlands this time, rather than songs. The offering is described as the wealth of the valleys, new-garnered and ripe. To garner is to gather in, so new-garnered means freshly harvested, and the phrase puts the crop itself on the altar.

Sender of rain and the dewfall

Varuna is hailed as the sender of rain and of the dewfall. The dewfall is the small, quiet part of the same gift, and including it shows how closely these singers watch the weather. A farmer knows that dew matters as well as a downpour.

Stanza three: the Earth

The women’s stanza calls on Prithvi. She is queen of the gourd-flower and queen of the harvest, and the hymn calls her a sweet and omnipotent mother. Omnipotent means all-powerful, and it is a large word to set beside sweet, which is exactly the point.

What the Earth is thanked for

Feeding and bearing. The hymn speaks of the plentiful bosom that feeds us, and then of the womb where our riches have birth. Both images are of a mother, and together they say the Earth does not simply hold a crop: she produces it.

What the women bring her

Love and garlands, which is the warmest of the four tributes. They come with gifts of her own opulent giving, where opulent means rich. The line admits something neat: everything a person can offer the Earth came from the Earth in the first place.

Source of manifold gladness

Prithvi is hailed as the source of manifold gladness. Manifold means many and of many kinds, so the gladness is not only the gladness of a full barn. Food, flowers, colour, shade and the festival itself all come back to the same source.

Three symbols

The chapter asks what the three figures stand for, and the answers are worth learning as a set. Surya stands for light, energy and life, the giver of warmth and prosperity. Varuna stands for mercy and nourishment. Prithvi stands for fertile land, motherhood and nurturing, the source of all life.

Why these three and no others

Because they are the three things a crop cannot do without: light, water and soil. The hymn is a prayer, and it is also an accurate list. A farmer thanking the sun, the rain and the earth has thanked everything that actually grew the grain.

The music at the end of each stanza

Every stanza closes by naming the instruments of its praise. Surya gets cymbal and flute, Varuna gets cymbal and pipe, and Prithvi gets cymbal and drum. The cymbal never changes, which keeps the beat of the whole hymn, while the second instrument marks each power as its own.

Scenario:

A Class 8 group won a district quiz and was asked to speak for two minutes at assembly. The first draft thanked the principal, at length, and nobody else. A teacher sent it back with one instruction: name everyone the win actually depended on. The second draft thanked three people. The library assistant who had kept the reference shelf open late. The parent who had driven them to the venue. And the Class 7 students who had been their practice opponents for a month. It ran to ninety seconds and the hall was silent through all of it.

Analysis:

The second draft works for the reason this hymn works. A thank-you is convincing when it names what the thing actually depended on, and the hymn is ruthless about this. It thanks the sun, the rain and the earth, which is to say light, water and soil, and there is nothing else a crop needs. It also gives each power its own word: bounty for the sun, mercy for the rain, feeding and bearing for the Earth. The first draft at assembly had praise but no accuracy, and praise without accuracy sounds like flattery. The second had both, which is why the hall listened.

Activity:

Write a four-line thank-you that names three things a result actually depended on.

Title:

Three stanzas, three columns

Safety:

No safety concerns.

What You Notice:

The cymbal and the garlands stay the same in all three, which is what makes the differences stand out.

Sarojini Naidu was a poet and a leader in the freedom movement, and she became the first woman to serve as Governor of an Indian state. She published poetry in English while writing in several Indian languages.

Nearly every part of India keeps a harvest festival, under different names and in different months, because the harvest itself falls at different times across the country.

The three powers the hymn thanks are exactly the three things a crop cannot be grown without: light, water and soil. The poem is a piece of agriculture as well as a prayer.

The three powers, in order — Sun, rain, earth — Surya, Varuna, Prithvi - light, water and soil.

The instruments, in order — Flute, pipe, drum — And a cymbal in every single stanza.

Who sings the last stanza

All voices. The men have sung two stanzas and the women one, and now the whole gathering joins for the fourth. A reader can tell it is a chorus from the heading itself, and from the subject: this stanza is not about a crop at all but about everything, so everybody has to sing it.

Who it is addressed to

The lord of the universe, and the lord of our being. Being here means an entire existence rather than a body or a possession. The stanza then adds two more titles: Father eternal, which means a timeless and everlasting presence, and ineffable Om, which means beyond human description.

Ineffable

It is the most interesting word in the stanza, because it admits a limit. It means beyond description or comprehension. A hymn that calls its subject ineffable is saying that the praise it offers cannot possibly be enough, and offering it anyway.

The Seed and the Scythe

The stanza calls him the Seed and the Scythe. A seed is where a crop starts and a scythe is what ends it, so the line makes the lord both the beginning and the end of the whole cycle. The chapter calls this an implied comparison of growth and reaping with the beginning and end of all life.

Why it is a metaphor

A metaphor compares without using like or as. The line does not say the lord is like a seed; it says he is the Seed. That is what makes it stronger than a simile, and it is why the chapter asks you to label it a metaphor rather than anything else.

Hands and Heart and Home

The next line says the lord is our Hands, our Heart and our Home, and all three carry capital letters. The chapter offers two readings, and prefers one: the capitals suggest that God resides in them. The work of the hands, the love of the heart and the shelter of the home are where the divine is found.

Why that reading matters

It changes the whole hymn. If God lives in the hands that do the work, then thanking him for the harvest is not a way of giving the credit away. It is a way of saying that the labour and the gift are part of the same thing, which is why the next line can offer labour as tribute.

Lives and labours for tribute

The first three stanzas bring songs, thanks and love. The fourth brings lives and labours, which is a far larger offering. The phrase is also alliterative, with the l sound repeating, and the chapter uses it as its example of alliteration.

The only request in the poem

Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care. Succour means help, counsel means advice and care means protection. Three stanzas of thanks come first, and only then does the hymn ask for anything, which is an order worth noticing.

Cymbal and prayer

Each of the first three stanzas ends with a cymbal and an instrument: flute, pipe, drum. The fourth ends with a cymbal and prayer. Prayer is not an instrument at all, and putting it where one belongs is the poem’s quietest and best effect.

The shape of every stanza

All four stanzas do the same five things. They name the power twice, once by an attribute and once as lord or queen of the harvest. They describe it. They say what is owed, beginning with thine or thou. They offer a tribute with garlands. And they hail and praise it by name, closing with music.

Why the shape helps a reader

Learn the pattern once and all four stanzas open at once. It also makes the differences visible. When the fourth stanza breaks the pattern by asking for something, a reader who knows the shape notices immediately, and that is exactly the moment the poem wants noticed.

Repetition

The hymn repeats phrases inside a single line again and again. The line about the gold of our fields, the gold of our fruit is the chapter’s own example. The first stanza repeats thine is the bounty, the second repeats thine is the mercy, and every stanza repeats lord or queen of the harvest.

What the repetition is for

Three things. It gives the hymn a beat, which a crowd needs in order to sing together. It doubles each idea, so a listener who misses one half still has the other. And it imitates the work itself, because sowing and reaping are repeated actions done over and over by many hands.

The tone

Respectful and celebratory. The chapter asks what the poem praises with such deep respect and gratitude, and the answer is nature and the lord rather than the men and women. The singers are the ones who did the work, and they spend the whole hymn thanking something else.

Imagery and personification

Imagery is writing that makes a clear picture and appeals to the senses, and the wealth of our valleys is the chapter’s example. Personification is giving human qualities to something not human, and calling the Earth a sweet and omnipotent mother is the example of that.

Why the poem is a hymn and not a song

A song can be about anything. A hymn praises, it is usually addressed to a god, and it is usually sung by a group. This poem does all three, and it does them in a fixed repeating shape, which is what lets a village sing it without a printed page.

Why men, women and all voices

Because the harvest belongs to everybody. The poem could have been one voice throughout and lost very little in meaning, but it would have lost the picture of a whole village standing together. The division of voices is the poem showing rather than telling.

Scenario:

A Class 8 group wrote a song for their school’s annual day. The first version had eight verses, each with a different rhythm, a different number of lines and a different ending. After three rehearsals only four students could get through it. A music teacher suggested one change: fix a shape for every verse, with the same opening line, the same number of beats and the same closing word. The group rewrote it in a single afternoon. On annual day the whole school joined in from the second verse onwards.

Analysis:

The teacher gave them the discovery that this hymn is built on. Every stanza of Harvest Hymn makes the same five moves and closes with a cymbal, which is precisely what lets a village sing it without a printed page in front of them. The repetition is not a shortage of ideas; it is the machinery of a crowd. Notice what the fixed shape also buys the poet. When the fourth stanza breaks the pattern, replacing songs with lives and labours and an instrument with prayer, every listener notices without being told. A pattern is what makes a change audible.

Activity:

Write two verses of your own that share one fixed shape, then break the shape in the second.

Title:

Find the four devices

Safety:

No safety concerns.

What You Notice:

The arguments are usually about personification and metaphor, because calling the Earth a mother does both at once.

Om is treated in Indian tradition as a sound rather than a word, which is why the poet calls it ineffable. A sound cannot be translated, only repeated.

A scythe is the tool of the harvest and a seed is the start of it, so naming both in one line covers an entire agricultural year in four words.

Sarojini Naidu was called the Nightingale of India for the music of her verse, and this poem shows why: it was written to be sung by three groups in turn.

The last stanza’s claim — Seed and Scythe — The beginning and the end of the harvest.

What the last stanza asks for — Succour, counsel, care — Help, advice and protection, in that order.

What archaic means

An archaic word is one that is no longer part of common usage. It is not wrong and it is not nonsense; it has simply dropped out of everyday speech. Poets keep such words on purpose, because an old form carries weight and because a hymn addressed to a god is not meant to sound like a conversation.

Thou and thee

Both mean you. The difference is the job each one does in the sentence. Thou is the subject, the one doing something: thou art my friend. Thee is the object, the one something is done to: I trust thee. Modern English threw the difference away and now uses you for both.

Art

It simply means are, and it goes with thou. Thou art my friend is you are my friend. The hymn uses it twice in the final stanza, in the lines about the Seed and the Scythe and about Hands and Heart and Home.

Thy and thine

Thy means your and thine means yours. Thy goes in front of a noun, as in thy kindness is great. Thine stands alone, as in everything that is mine is thine. The hymn uses both: thine is the bounty, and grant us thy succour.

Five more old words

Morrow means tomorrow. Hither means here, or to this place. Quoth means said. Betwixt means between. And yonder means over there. None of the five is needed any more, and all five still turn up in older poems, hymns and plays.

Why a poet keeps them

Three reasons. They sound older and so feel more formal. They are often shorter, which helps a line scan. And a reader who meets thou in the first line knows at once what kind of poem this is going to be, which saves the poet an explanation.

Beneficent and munificent

The hymn uses both, one line apart in different stanzas, and the chapter asks you to tell them apart. Beneficent means kind. Munificent means generous. The sun is munificent because it gives freely, and the rain is beneficent because it is good to those below it.

Succour

This one means help, and especially help in difficulty. The chapter gives a plain example: when a man lost his job, his friends supported him with money, and that support was succour. It is the first thing the hymn actually asks for.

Radiance

It means brightness, glow or brilliance. When the sun’s rays come into a dark room, the room fills with radiance. The hymn calls Surya the giver of mellowing radiance, which is light that also ripens.

Ineffable

This one means indescribable, or beyond words. A girl speechless with ineffable joy over a birthday gift is the chapter’s example. The hymn uses it of Om, which is a sound rather than a word and so cannot be translated at all.

Four more words worth keeping

Tribute means something offered out of respect or gratitude. Cherished means loved, or kept with care. Counsel means advice. And opulent means rich. All four appear in the poem or its exercises, and all four are useful far beyond this chapter.

The sickle

A sickle is held in one hand. Its blade is curved and its handle is short, and it is used for harvesting crops. One hand holds the stems and the other swings the blade, which is why a sickle suits a field where the crop stands close together.

The scythe

A scythe also has a curved blade, but it is long and the handle is long too, and it is used for cutting tall grass. It is swung with both hands in a wide sweep. The hymn names it in the last stanza, where the lord is called the Seed and the Scythe.

The plough

A plough is pulled by oxen and it turns the soil over in a field, so that seed can go in. It is the one tool on the list that an animal pulls, and the furrows the hymn mentions are exactly what it leaves behind.

The spade and the trowel

A spade has a flat rectangular blade on a long wooden handle and is used for digging soil. A trowel is a small tool held in one hand, used to dig and to make shallow furrows. They do the same job at two very different sizes.

The rake

A rake has a long handle with metal teeth across the end, and it is used for collecting hay or leaves. It is the only tool here that gathers rather than cuts or digs, which makes it the tool of the end of the day.

Two jobs, six tools

Sort the six and they fall into two groups. The sickle, the scythe and the rake work on what grows above the soil: cutting the crop, cutting the grass, gathering what is cut. The plough, the spade and the trowel work on the soil itself.

How a paddy crop is grown

The chapter lists the stages, and they have a natural order. The land is ploughed. It is then puddled, which means water is worked into the soil until it is soft mud. Seedlings are transplanted into it. The paddy is harvested when ripe. And the grain is threshed out of the cut crop.

Scenario:

A village museum displayed six farm tools with labels giving only their names. Visiting Class 8 students could name two of the six and guessed at the rest, and three of them called the scythe a sickle. A teacher asked the museum to rewrite the labels. The new labels gave the name, one line on the blade and the handle, and one line on the job. Six weeks later a second group named all six correctly, and none of them confused the sickle with the scythe.

Analysis:

The second set of labels works because it names the test rather than the object. A sickle and a scythe are easy to confuse, since both are curved blades, and a label that says only sickle gives a visitor nothing to check. A label that mentions the handle gives them everything: short handle and one hand for a sickle, long handle and both hands for a scythe. The chapter does the same thing in its exercise, which describes each tool by its blade, its handle and its use before asking for the name. Learning a list of six names is hard. Learning three tests that sort six tools is not.

Activity:

Write three-line labels for any three tools in your own home, naming the test that identifies each one.

Title:

Translate a verse

Safety:

No safety concerns.

What You Notice:

The modern version is usually longer and almost always flatter, which is most of the reason the poet kept the old forms.

English once had two words for you, one familiar and one formal, as French and Hindi still do. Thou was the familiar one, which is why it survives in prayer: it is the form you use with somebody close.

A scythe is swung with both hands and a sickle is used with one, which is why a sickle is the tool of a crowded field and a scythe the tool of an open one.

Puddling means working water into the soil until it turns to soft mud, and paddy is one of very few crops grown that way on purpose.

Thou against thee — Thou does, thee receives — Thou art my friend. I trust thee.

Thy against thine — Thy before a noun, thine alone — Thy kindness, and all that is mine is thine.