Beyond the swampy meadow, fringed with flags, The ancient forest waves its gaudy head, O’er which the eagle takes his lonely way— The mighty hunter of the upper air. There, in the mossy dells, where all is still, Save when uncertain murmurs come and go Along the solemn arches of the wood— Like whispers in a lonely lane at dark, Or soothing hum of home-returning bee— The boy, delighted, sets his secret snares, Clearing broad paths amid the yellow leaves, Where the cock-partridge may strut in pride At earliest dawn, and find the fatal noose; There, when the sun is peeping o’er the hills, Tinging the woodland sea with gorgeous hues, He goes, with eager step and anxious eye, Beholds the path obscured, the sapling sprung, And, ’mid the maple boughs, his mottled prey. — The Reaper pauses in the ample field, Where a rich harvest smiles to bless his toil, And rests beside the oak, beneath whose shade, In ages past, the wandering Red Man slept; There, while the sun poured down his fervent ray, The happy laborer seeks to quench his thirst, With crystal water from the lime-stone spring, Or milk, from prudent housewife’s ample store— Pure as it came from Nature’s healthy fount; And while he sits the idle hours away, He muses o’er his country and her fame, And dares to claim her empire as his own. And there, amid the grass, the children play Around the sun-burnt maidens, as they twine The bands to bind the golden armfuls tight, And leave the bristling sheafs, with plenty crowned, Standing in beauty on the fresh-reap’d hill. The groaning wagon gathers up the grain From auburn fields. The yellow sheafs are piled In ponderous heaps, while one well skilled builds up The toppling load, and when ’tis finished, sits On its sere top, crowned with the ripened grain— The Autumn’s King! And as the reaper’s hale And rosy children shout for joy, he sings, With mellow voice, the song of Harvest Home. The sickle gleams no more amid the fields; The cradled hills are open to the feet Of Want’s poor gleaners and the hunter band; And there the quail walks with her piping brood Amid the stubble, teaching them to fly. Amid the orchard, bending ’neath the load That fair Pomona from her lap has strewn, The busy husbandmen commence their tasks. The red-cheeked apple, and the greening pale, The golden-pippin, and the blue pearmain, Baldwin and russet, all are toppled down, And to the air a balmy fragrance give. And there, the urchins playing all the while, Select the choicest fruit for future use, When the long winter night creeps o’er the hill, And autumn’s golden brow is wrapped in gloom.