III

The tanned and tired noon climbs high

Up burning reaches of the sky;

Below the drowsy belts of pines

The rock-ledged river foams and shines;

And over rainless hill and dell

Is blown the harvest's sultry smell:

While, in the fields, one sees and hears

The brawny-throated harvesters,—

Their red brows beaded with the heat,—

By twos and threes among the wheat

Flash their hot scythes; behind them press

The binders — men and maids that sing

Like some mad troop of piping Pan;—

While all the hillsides swoon and ring

Such sounds of Ariel airiness

As haunted freckled Caliban.

‘ O ho! O ho!‘ tis noon I say.

The roses blow.

Away, away, above the hay,

To the tune o’ the bees the roses sway;

The love-songs that they hum all day,

So low! So low!

The roses’ Minnesingers they.’

Up velvet lawns of lilac skies

The tawny moon begins to rise

Behind low, blue-black hills of trees,—

As rises up, in Siren seas,

To rock in purple deeps, hip-hid,

A virgin-bosomed Oceanid.—

Gaunt shadows crouch by tree and scaur,

Like shaggy Satyrs waiting for

The moonbeam Nymphs, the Dryads white,

That take with loveliness the night,

And glorify it with their love.

The sweet, far notes I hear, I hear,

Beyond dim pines and mellow ways,

The song of some fair harvester,

The lovely Limnad of the grove,

Whose singing charms me while it slays.

‘ O deep! O deep! the earth and air

Are sunk in sleep.

Adieu to care! Now everywhere

Is rest; and by the old oak there

The maiden with the nut-brown hair

Doth keep, doth keep

Tryst with her lover the young and fair.’