Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 268, August 11, 1827 - Various - Страница 3

"By whose tough labours, and rough hands,"

Hark! the ripe and hoary rye

Waving white and billowy,

Gives a husky rustle, as

Fitful breezes fluttering pass.

See the brown and bending wheat,

By its posture seems to meet

The harvest's sickle, as it gleams

Like the crescent moon in streams,

Brown with shade and night that run

Under shores and forests dun.

Lusty Labour, with tired stoop,

Levels low, at every swoop,

Armfuls of ripe-coloured corn,

Yellow as the hair of morn;

And his helpers track him close,

Laying it in even rows,

On the furrow's stubbly ridge;

Nearer to the poppied hedge.

Some who tend on him that reaps

Fastest, pile it into heaps;

And the little gleaners follow

Them again, with whoop and halloo

When they find a hand of ears

More than falls to their compeers.

Ripening in the dog-star's ray,

Some, too early mown, doth lay;

Some in graceful shocks doth stand

Nodding farewell to the land

That did give it life and birth;

Some is borne, with shout and mirth,

Drooping o'er the groaning wain.

Through the deep embowered lane;

And the happy cottaged poor,

Hail it, as it glooms their door,

With a glad, unselfish cry,

Though they'll buy it bitterly.

And the old are in the sun,

Seeing that the work is done

As it was when age was young;

And the harvest song is sung;

And the quaint and jocund tale

Takes the stint-key from the ale,

And as free and fast it runs

As a June rill from the sun's

Dry and ever-drinking mouth:—

Mirth doth alway feel a drowth.

Butt and barrel ceaseless flow

Fast as cans can come and go;

One with emptied measures comes

Drumming them with tuneful thumbs;

One reels field-ward, not quite sober,

With two cans of ripe October,

Some of last year's brewing, kept

Till the corn of this is reaped.

Now 'tis eve, and done all labour,

And to merry pipe and tabor,

Or to some cracked viol strummed

With vile skill, or table drummed

To the tune of some brisk measure,

Wont to stir the pulse to pleasure,

Men and maidens timely beat

The ringing ground with frolic feet;

And the laugh and jest go round

Till all mirth in noise is drowned.