Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A HARVEST SONG, by JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A HARVEST SONG, by             Poet's Biography
First Line: O the mellow days of autumn
Last Line: And she sings the reaper's song.
Subject(s): Army - United States; Grief; Marching & Marches; Memory; Music & Musicians; Sorrow; Sadness


O, THE mellow days of autumn
How I love to see them come,
When the harvest army marches
To the bittern's noisy drum.

Every day is full of sweetness, every night is full of song—
And the air is full of ripeness as the breezes sweep along.
The mocking-bird, awakened by the flood of soothing light,
Weaves a golden thread of music in the silver woof of night,
While the rustling of a thousand flashing blades amid the corn,
Like an army in the moonlight waits the reaper of the morn.

O, the mellow days of autumn
How I love to see them come,
When, like an Indian princess
Stands the maple, and the gum.

All the earth is full of beauty, all the sky in azure fold,
And the sunshine in its softness melts in dreamy waves of gold.
The wild goose flying southward sounds his startled, clarion note,
And the trumpet of the harvest march is in his echoing throat,
While the flashing of a thousand cotton banners 'mid the corn,
Like our skies, are red at evening but are silver in the morn.

O, the mellow nights of autumn
When the harvest moon is queen
And the stars, like little reapers,
Flash their tiny blades between.

How they thrill me with a sweetness that is over-sweet to last,
Like a glory of the present in a halo of the past,
And they fill my heart with achings, with a sweet and tender pain,
Like the memory of a music that I ne'er shall hear again,
And they fill my soul with longings and they fill my eyes with tears,
Like a half-forgotten laughter in the long-forgotten years.

O, the mellow nights of autumn
They are coming in a throng,
And the harvest moon is with them
And she sings the reaper's song.





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