•224 
From Heav’n’s high cope tlie fierce effulgence shook 
Of parting Summer, a serener blue, 
With golden light enliven’d, wide invests 
The happy w^orld. Attemper’d suns arise. 
Sweet-beamed, and shedding oft through lucid clouds 
A pleasing calm; while broad and browm below. 
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head. 
Rich, silent, deep they stand, for not a gale 
Rolls its light billows o’er the bending plain: 
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air 
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow. 
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky; 
The clouds fly different; and the sudden Sun, 
By fits effulgent, gilds th’ illumined field. 
And black by fits the shadows sweep along. 
A gaily-chequer’d, heart-expanding view. 
Far as the circling eye can shoot around 
Unbounding tossing in a flood of corn. 
Autumn in England is a joyous and a glorious season, 
the time when nature’s wealth of field and tree is most 
lavishly displayed, and gathered with thankful merriment. 
How richly, glowingly beautiful are corn-fields now! — with 
their troops of reapers, gleaners, and country maidens — 
heavily-laden waggons, sleek, sturdy horses, and gambolling 
children. 
Herrick’s “ Hock-cart, or Harvest-home,” well describes 
such scenes, though he seems to allude to ceremonies not 
now in use at that festive time — 
Come, sons of Summer, by whose toile 
We are the lords of wine and oile; 
By whose tough labours and rough hands. 
We rip up first, then reap our lands. 
