Season of mists and mellow
fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and
bless
With fruit
the vines that round the thatch-eves
run;
To bend with apples the moss'd
cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to
the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel
shells
With a
sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the
bees,
Until they think warm days
will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
cells.
Who hath not seen thee
oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing
wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow
sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while
thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined
flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner
thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours
by hours.
Where are the songs
of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music
too,--
While barred clouds bloom
the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy
hue;
Then in a wailful choir the
small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or
dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat
from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble
soft
The red-breast
whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the
skies.
