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How they crowd to hear his strain!
All careless with his legs across,
Leaning on a bank of moss,

He spends his empty hours at play,
Which fly as light as down away.

And there behold a bloomy mead,
A silver stream, a willow shade,
Beneath the shade a fisher stand,
Who, with the angle in his hand,
Swings the nibbling fry to land.

In blushes the descending sun Kisses the streams, while slow they run; And yonder hill remoter grows,

Or dusky clouds to interpose.

The fields are left, the laboring hind

His weary oxen does unbind;

And vocal mountains, as they low,

Re-echo to the vales below;

The jocund shepherds piping come,

And drive the herd before them home;

And now begin to light their fires,

Which send up smoke in curling spires!

While with light hearts all homeward tend, To Abergasney I descend.

DYER.

12

THE

POETRY OF AUTUMN.

THE POETRY OF AUTUMN.

HARVEST-HOME.

SUMMER'S toiling now is past;

Harvest now hath sent her last

Her last, last load.

If the field containeth more,

Master, give it to the poor,

Abroad-abroad.

Let them through the corn-field roam,
While we welcome harvest-home,-

Harvest-home, harvest-home,—

While we welcome harvest-home :

Songs shall sound and ale-cups foam

While we welcome harvest-home.

MILLER.

HARVEST FIELD.

Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceived, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripened field the reapers stand
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.

At once they stoop and swell the lusty sheaves;
While through their cheerful band the rural talk,
The rural scandal, and the rural jest,

Fly harmless, to deceive the tedious time,
And steal unfelt the sultry hours away.
Behind the master walks, builds up the shock;
And, conscious, glancing oft on every side
His sated eye, feels his heart heave with joy.
The gleaners spread around, and here and there,
Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick.

Be not too narrow, husbandmen! but fling
From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth,
The liberal handful. Think, oh, grateful think,
How good the God of Harvest is to you,

Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields;

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