A boy once more I stand with sunburnt feet

And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat;

Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw

[11] 

Nearby the thresher, whose insatiate maw

Devours the sheaves, hot drawling out its hum—

Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom,

Made drunk with honey—while, grown big with grain,

The bulging sacks receive the golden rain.

Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay,

And hear the bob-white calling far away,

Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake;

Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake

As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen

The red-fox leaps and gallops to his den;

Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam,

Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home

From church, or fair, or bounteous barbecue,

Which the whole country to some village drew.

How spilled with berries were its summer hills,

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