The Harvest Moon

It is the Harvest Moon!    On gilded vanes
    And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
    And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
    Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
    And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
    Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
    With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
    Of Nature have their image in the mind,
    As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
    Only the empty nests are left behind,
    And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator. He wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. Some of his famous works include "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Song of Hiawatha." Longfellow was one of the most popular American poets of his time and remains a significant figure in the canon of American literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Simple Poetry

English

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The Harvest Moon

I


Globed in Heav'n's tree of azure, golden mellow
As some round apple hung
High in hesperian boughs, thou hangest yellow
The branch-like mists among:
Within thy light a sunburnt youth, named Health,
Rests 'mid the tasseled shocks, the tawny stubble;
And by his side, clad on with rustic wealth
Of field and farm, beneath thy amber bubble,
A nut-brown maid, Content, sits smiling still:
While through the quiet trees,
The mossy rocks, the grassy hill,
Thy silvery spirit glides to yonder mill,
Around whose wheel the breeze
And shimmering ripples of the water play,
As, by their mother, little children may.


II


Sweet spirit of the moon, who walkest,--lifting
Exhaustless on thy arm,
A pearly vase of fire,--through the s...

Madison Julius Cawein

Autumn

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
    With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
    Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
    And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!
Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,
    Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand
    Outstretched with benedictions o'er the land,
    Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!
Thy shield is the red harvest moon, suspended
    So long beneath the heaven's o'er-hanging eaves;
    Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended;
Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;
    And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
    Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Aftermath

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
    And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
    And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
    Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mired with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
    In the silence and the gloom.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Huskers

It was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain
Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again;
The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay
With the hues of summer's rainbow, or the meadow flowers of May.
Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red,
At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped;
Yet, even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued,
On the cornfields and the orchards, and softly pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night,
He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light;
Slanting through the painted beeches, he glorified the hill;
And, beneath it, pond and meadow lay brighter, greener still.
And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught glimpses of tha...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Autumn

With what a glory comes and goes the year!
The buds of spring, those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out;
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with
A sober gladness the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene.

    There is a beautiful spirit breathing now
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees,
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds.
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing lea...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Before Harvest.

And now 'tis time for Harvest. Hark! and lo,
With ringing sound of full melodious horn,
Over yon eastern hill-top all aglow, -
Her sickle gleaming in the golden morn,
Her arm upraised with sheaf of yellow corn, -
She comes elate with light, elastic pace;
Her neck and zone full-clustered vines adorn;
Her saffron locks, fruit-crowned; her luscious grace;
Her round and ripened form; her fair, benignant face.

And now the fields, when suns serenely greet,
A rich and mellow, wanton joy afford:
The russet pease vines, and the burnished wheat
And whiter barley, - hating to be stored,
Guarding with jealous spears their precious hoard, -
The tapering oat-stalk, dangling beads of gold:
In brilliant sea of beauty all outpoured,
With dazzling depth of splendor all un...

W. M. MacKeracher