Someone please help! Question worth 50 points! The Sower
by James Russell Lowell

I saw a Sower walking slow
Across the earth, from east to west;
His hair was white as mountain snow.
His head drooped forward on his breast.

5 With shriveled hands he flung his seed,
Nor ever turned to look behind;
Of sight or sound he took no heed;
It seemed he was both deaf and blind.

His dim face showed no soul beneath,
10 Yet in my heart I felt a stir,
As if I looked upon the sheath
That once had held Excalibur.1

I heard, as still the seed he cast,
How, crooning to himself he sung.
15 'I sow again the holy Past,
The happy days when I was young.

'Then all was wheat without a tare2,
Then all was righteous, fair, and true;
And I am he whose thoughtful care
20 Shall plant the Old World in the New.

'The fruitful germs I scatter free,
With busy hand, while all men sleep;
In Europe now, from sea to sea,
The nations bless me as they reap.'

25 Then I looked back along his path.
And heard the clash of steel on steel,
Where man faced man, in deadly wrath,
While clanged the tocsin's3 hurrying peal.

The sky with burning towns flared red,
30 Nearer the noise of fighting rolled.
And brothers' blood, by brothers shed,
Crept curdling over pavements cold.

Then marked I how each germ of truth
Which through the dotard's4 fingers ran
35 Was mated with a dragon's tooth
Whence there sprang up an armed man5.

I shouted, but he could not hear;
Made signs, but these he could not see;
And still, without a doubt or fear,
40 Broadcast he scattered anarchy.

Long to my straining ears the blast
Brought faintly back the words he sung:
'I sow again the holy Past,
The happy days when I was young.

Select ALL the correct answers.
Which two statements express themes of the poem?

People tend to believe that bygone days are better.
Wars are never truly won because of their human cost.
The elderly dwell on the strength of their younger days.
The things visible to the eye are not as they seem.
Actions intended for good do not always yield goodness.