THE HAPPY HARVESTERS.

Autumn, like an old poet in a haze

Of golden visions, dreams away his days,

So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear

The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere;

Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales

Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales,

Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood

That haunt the forest's social solitude.

His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife

With the calm wisdom of that inner life

That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown,

All space his empire, and the sun his throne.

As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers,

So into autumn's variegated hours

Is hived the Hybla richness of the year;

Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer,

As autumn, seated on the highest hills,

Gleans honied secrets from the passing rills;

While from below, the harvest canzonas

Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.

Foremost among the honoured sons of toil

Are they who overcome the stubborn soil;

Brave Cincinnatus in his country home

Was even greater than when lord of Rome.

Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines

That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines

Of Ceres’ army looking from the height

On the dim lowlands deepening into night;

Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze,

Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze;

Through all the vales the vespers of the birds

Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds;

And the stout axles of the heavy wain

Creak‘ neath the fulness of the ripened grain,

As the swarth builders of the precious load,

Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.