The harvest-moon stands on the sea, Her golden rim's adrip;
She lights the sheaves on many a lea, The sails on many a ship;
Glitter, sweet Queen! upon the spray, And glimmer on the heather;
Right fair thy ray to gild the way Where lovers walk together.
The red wheat rustles, and the vines Are purple to the foot;
And true-love, waiting patient, wins Its blessed time of fruit:
Lamp of all lovers, Lady-moon! Light these ripe lips together
Which reap alone a harvest sown Long ere September weather.
Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.
On russet floors, by waters idle, The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing In leafy dells alone;
And traveller's joy beguiles in autumn Hearts that have lost their own.
On acres of the seeded grasses The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter And stain the wind with leaves.
Possess, as I possessed a season, The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest Would murmur and be mine.
For nature, heartless, witless nature, Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning If they are mine or no.
~~
A.E. Housman (1859-1936)
from Last Poems, 1922
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
From the charm of radiant faces,
From the days we took to dream,
From the joy of open spaces,
From the mountain and the stream,
Bronzed of sunlight, nerves a-tingle,
Keen of limb and clear of head,
Speed we back again to mingle
In the battle for our bread.
Now again the stern commanding
Of the chosen task is heard,
And the tyrant, care, is standing
Arbiter of deed and word.
But the radiance is not ended,
And the joy, whate’er the cost,
Which those fleeting days attended
Never can be wholly lost.
For we bring to waiting duty,
To the labor and the strife,
Something of the sense of beauty,
And a fairer view of life.
~~
Leslie Pinckney Hill (1880-1960)
from The Wings of Oppression, 1921
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]
Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore,
So fair a summer look for nevermore:
All good things vanish less than in a day,
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.
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