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-eaves run; | |
| To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. | |
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| 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; | 15 |
| Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, | |
| Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook | |
| Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers; | |
| And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep | |
| Steady thy laden head across a brook; | 20 |
| Or by a cider-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 barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft | |
| The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; | |
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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