Rises about his loins, and so conceals The rails, the cart-beam, and the very wheels; And, when the cart moves on, with the hay trailing, It seems like some unwieldy vessel sailing. But now the cartman rises, and descries The runner, and “Hold, men! there’s trouble!” cries; And all his aids, who in great forkfuls carry To him the hay, do for a moment tarry, And wipe their streaming brows; and mowers rest The scythe-back carefully upon the breast, And whet the edge, as they the plain explore That Phœbus wings his burning arrows o’er. Began the rustic messenger straightway, “Hear men, what our good master bade me say: “‘Cupbearer,’ was his word, ‘upon your track Across the fields like lightning go you back, And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall “‘Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!’” Then, fleeter than a goat, the faithful man O’er the rich, madder-growing hillocks ran,-- Althen’s bequest,--and saw on every hand The gold of perfect ripeness tinge the land, And centaury-starred fields, and ploughmen bent Above their ploughs and on their mules intent, And earth, awakened from her winter-sleep, And shapeless clods upturned from furrows deep, And wagtails frisking o’er; and yet again, “Hearken to what our master saith, good men! “‘Cupbearer,’ was his word, ‘upon your track Across the fields like lightning go you back, And bid the ploughmen and the mowers all Quit ploughs and scythes, the harvesters let fall Their sickles, and the shepherds hastily Forsake their flocks, and hither come to me!’” Then the stout runner, fleeter than the goats, Dashed through the pieces waving with wild-oats, Fosses o’erleaped with meadow-flowers bright, And in great yellow wheat-fields passed from sight, Where reapers forty, sickle each in hand, Like a devouring fire fall on the land, And strip her mantle rich and odorous From off her breast, and, ever gaining thus As wolves upon their prey, rob, hour by hour, Earth of her gold, and summer of her flower; While in the wake of each, in ordered line, Falls the loose grain, like tendrils of the vine. And the sheaf-binders, ever on the watch, The dropping wheat in handfuls deftly catch, And underneath the arm the same bestow Until, so gathering, they have enow; When, pressing with the knee, they tightly bind, And lastly fling the perfect sheaf behind. Twinkle the sickles keen like swarming bees, Or laughing ripple upon sunny seas Where flounders are at play. Erect and tall, With rough beards blent, in heaps pyramidal, The sheaves by hundreds rise. The plain afar Shows like a tented camp in days of war;