To Nowell Smith.
Not now the rejoicing face of summer glows
In splendour to a blue and splendid sky:
For now hath died each lingering wild rose
Off tangled river banks: and autumn shows
Fields of red corn, that on the downside lie
Beneath a gentle mist, a golden haze.
So shrouded, the red cornlands take an air
Trembling with warm wind: sickle-girt, forth fare
Harvesting hinds, with swift arms brown and bare;
Revering well toil's venerable ways.
Most golden music is among the corn,
Played by the winds wavering over it:
A murmuring sound, as when against the morn,
Orient upon calm seas, their noise is borne
Innumerably rippling and sunlit.
Most golden music is in either tide:
And this of radiant corn, before it fall,
Wills not that summer die unmusical,
By no rich surge of murmurs glorified:
Nay! the fields rock and rustle, sounding all
Praise of the fruitful earth on every side.
Good, through the yellow fields to ponder long:
Good, long to meditate the stilly sight.
Afar shone down a brazen sunlight strong,
Over the harvested hillside, along
The laboured meadows, burning with great light:
The air trembled with overflow of heat
In the low valley, where no movement was
Of soft-blown wind, ruffling the scytheless grass
Thick-growing by the waters, cool and sweet:
No swing of boughs; there were no airs to pass
Caressing them: all winds failed, when all wheat,
All fair crops murmuring their soft acclaim,
Fell, golden rank on golden rank, and lay
Ruddily heaped along the earth: the flame
Of delicate poppies, rich and frail, became
Wan dying weed; convolvulus, astray
Out from its hedgerows far into the field,
In clinging coils of leaf and tender bloom,
Shared with the stalks it clung and clasped, their doom.
So went the work: so gave the ripened weald
Its fruits and pleasant flowers; and made a room,
Wherein fresh winds might wave a fresh year's yield.
1886.