  When on the breath of Autumn's breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down,— Oh, then what joy to walk at will Upon the golden harvest-hill! What joy in dreaming ease to lie Amid a field new shorn; And see all round, on sunlit slopes, The piled-up shocks of corn; And send the fancy wandering o'er All pleasant harvest-fields of yore! I feel the day; I see the field; The quivering of the leaves; And good old Jacob, and his house,— Binding the yellow sheaves! And at this very hour I seem To be with Joseph in his dream! I see the fields of Bethlehem, And reapers many a one Bending unto their sickles' stroke, And Boaz looking on; And Ruth, the Moabitess fair, Among the gleaners stooping there! Again, I see a little child, His mother's sole delight,— God's living gift of love unto The kind, good Shunammite; To mortal pangs I see him yield, And the lad bear him from the field. The sun-bathed quiet of the hills, The fields of Galilee, That eighteen hundred years ago Were full of corn, I see; And the dear Saviour take his way 'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day. Oh, golden fields of bending corn, How beautiful they seem! The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves, To me are like a dream; The sunshine, and the very air Seem of old time, and take me there! Mary Howitt |
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