visions, dreams away his days,
  So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear
  The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere;
  Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales
  Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales,
  Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood
  That haunt the forest's social solitude.
  His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife
  With the calm wisdom of that inner life
  That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown,
  All space his empire, and the sun his throne.
  As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers,
  So into autumn's variegated hours
  Is hived the Hybla richness of the year;
  Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer,
  As autumn, seated on the highest hills,
  Gleans honied secrets from the passing rills;
  While from below, the harvest canzonas
  Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.
  Foremost among the honoured sons of toil
  Are they who overcome the stubborn soil;
  Brave Cincinnatus in his country home
  Was even greater than when lord of Rome.
  Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines
  That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines

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  Of Ceres' army looking from the height
  On the dim lowlands deepening into night;
  Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze,
  Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze;
  Through all the vales the vespers of the birds
  Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds;
  And the stout axles of the heavy wain
  Creak 'neath the fulness of the ripened grain,
  As the swarth builders of the precious load,
  Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.

AUTUMN ODE.

  God of the Harvest! Thou, whose sun
    Has ripened all the golden grain,
  We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store,
  The cup of Plenty running o'er,
    The sunshine and the rain.

  The year laughs out for very joy,
    Its silver treble echoing
  Like a sweet anthem through the woods,
  Till mellowed by the solitudes
    It folds its glossy wing.

  But our united voices blend
    From day to day unweariedly;
  Sure as the sun rolls up the morn,
  Or twilight from the eve is born,
    Our song ascends to Thee.

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  Where'er the various-tinted woods,
    In all their autumn splendour dressed,
  Impart their gold and purple dyes
  To distant hills and farthest skies
    Along the crimson west:

  Across the smooth, extended plain,
    By rushing stream and broad lagoon,
  On shady height and sunny dale,
  Wherever scuds the balmy gale,
    Or gleams the autumn moon:

  From inland seas of yellow grain,
    Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest,
  With willing hands and keen-edged scythe,
  And accents musically blythe,
    Reveals its lordly crest:

  From clover-fields and meadows wide,
    Where moves the richly-laden wain
  To barns well-stored with new-made hay,
  Or where the flail at early day
    Rolls out the ripened grain:

  From meads and pastures on the hills,
    And in the mountain valleys deep,
  Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine
  Of famous Ayr or Devon's line,
    And shepherd-guarded sheep:

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  The spirits of the golden year,
    From crystal caves and grottoes dim,
  From forest depths and mossy sward,
  Myriad-tongued, with one accord
    Peal forth their harvest hymn.

II.

  Their daily labour in the happy fields
  A two-fold crop of grain and pleasure yields,
  While round their hearths, before their evening fires,
  Whore comfort reigns, whence weariness retires,
  The level tracts, denuded of their grain,
  In calm dispute are bravely shorn again,
  Till some rough reaper, on a tide of song,
  Like a bold pirate, captivates the throng:

A SONG FOR THE FLAIL.

  A song, a song for the good old Flail,
    And the brawny arms that wield it,
  Hearty and hale, in our yeoman mail,
    Like intrepid knights we'll shield it.
      We are old nature's peers,
      Right royal cavaliers!
  Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
  We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

  A song, a song for the golden grain,
    As it wooes the flail's embraces,
  In wavy sheaves like a golden main,
    With its bright spray in our faces.

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      Mirth hastens at our call,
      Jovial hearts have we all!
  Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
  We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

  A song, a song for the good old Flail,
    That our fathers used before us;
  A song for the Flail, and the faces hale
    Of the queenly dames that bore us!
      We are old nature's peers,
      Right royal cavaliers!
  Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
  We're Princes in our own right—our sceptre is the Flail.

III.

  Fair was the maid, and lovely as the morn
  From starry Night and rosy Twilight born,
  Within whose mind a rivulet of song
  Rehearsed the strains that from her lips ere long
  Welled free and sparkling, as the vocal woods
  Repeat the day-spring's sweetest interludes.
  Her gentle eyes' serenest depths of blue
  Shrined love and truth, and all their retinue;
  The health and beauty of her youthful face
  Made it the Harem of each maiden grace;
  And such perfection blended with her air,
  She seemed some stately Goddess moving there:
  Beholding her, you thought she might have been
  The long-lost, flower-loving Proserpine:

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AN AUTUMN CHANGE.

  "Oh, dreamy autumn days!
  I seek your faded ways,
  As one who calmly strays
    Through visions of the past;
  I walk the golden hours,
  And where I gathered flowers
  The stricken leaves in showers
    Are hurled upon the blast."

  Thus mused the lonely maid,
  As through the autumn glade,
  With pensive heart, she strayed,
    Regretting Love's delay;
  In vain the traitor flies!
  To pleading lips and eyes,
  Sweet looks, and tender sighs,
    He falls an easy prey.

  "Oh, dreamy autumn days!
  I tread your bridal ways,
  As one who homeward strays,
    Through realms divinely fair;
  I walk Love's radiant hours,
  Fragrant with passion flowers,
  And blessings fall like dowers
    Down the elysian air."

  Thus mused the maiden now,
  With sunny heart and brow,
  For Love had turned his prow

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