Classic Poem

Most potent sun, how beautiful
Old harvest days have been,
With health and peace, the garner full,
The fields more yellow than green;
When upwards thrown on the arch that leaps
The fly-frequented stream,
Where the tired midday traveller sleeps,
Danced ever-more the ripple's gleam;
And on its ledge a white-haired child
Sat for idling hours beguiled,
Peeping down right cautiously
A glimmering water friend to see
Smiling from beneath, with hair
Like his own but still more fair.
Beside him laid the bunch of grain,
His earnings in the gleaning train
Then seen through hedge-rows here and there,
Gay in their sun-bright rustic dress,
Where the binder rears the sheaves
At intervals in grouped caress,
Joking wisely as he leaves
Each rustling girth of fruitfulness,
And the looped-up damsels go
Far down the field, now fast, now slow,
Now resting in the sultry air,
Or throwing back betimes their hair
As it falls before their eyes
When they stoop or when they rise.