That mantles all the landscape with its languid, dreamy haze;

And you see the leaves a-dropping, in a lazy kind of way,

Where the maple trees are standing in their Summer-time array.

There's a yellowish tinge a-creeping over Nature's emerald sheen,

And the cattle stand, half-sleeping, in the middle of the stream

Where the glassy pool is shaded by the overhanging limb,

And the pebbly bottom's glinting where the silvery minnows swim.

The tasseled corn is nodding, and the crow on drowsy wing

Is sailing o'er the orchard where the ripening apples swing,

And the fleecy clouds are floating in the azure of the sky,

And the gentle breeze is sighing as it's idly wafted by.

[Pg 12]

The cantaloupes are ripening in their yellow golden rinds;

And the melons, round and juicy, are a-clinging to the vines;

And the merry, laughing children, in their happy hour of play,

Are a-romping in the meadow and a-sliding down the hay.

The busy bees are buzzing where the grapes with purple blush,

And the hanging bunches tempting with their weight the arbor crush,

And the blue jays are a-wrangling in the wood across the road,

Where the hickory boughs are bending 'neath an extra heavy load.

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