Among the hardy marigolds
The spicy gillyflower unfolds,
And in the elm a catbird scolds
With saucy, outspread wings;
To mellow sweets the pippins speed,
The sunflower disks are brown with seed,
And round about them finches feed
In clinging, yellow rings.
The latest poppy fires are dead,
But bright as blossoms overhead
In shining sheaves of bronze and red,
The frost-tipped pear leaves show;
While from their branches blackbirds sing
Or break to noisy chattering;
And slender silken cobwebs string
The tall grass down below.
Along the uplands, faintly seen
Across the fallow fields between,
The winter wheat grows bravely green
Despite the coming cold;
And studding all the stubbled ground
In tasseled shocks the corn is bound,
The ripened ears heaped close around
In piles of purest gold.
To smoky wreaths along the ways
The newly kindled brush-heaps blaze,
And filmy veils of purple haze
Mesh all the amber air;
Among the fleeces of the sheep
The yellow sunbeams softly creep,
And sweet contentment, wide and deep,
Rests gently everywhere.