Aftermath
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
I have created an image along with some additional documents that might help you process the election aftermath. Perhaps the elder meaning of the word used in the Tennyson poem above evades you. The aftermath is the second cutting of hay, that which thou ‘aftermoweth’.
Here is some hay to cut if you want to have at it with your annotation haybine.