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.