Another field rose high with waving grain;

With bended sickles stand the reaper train:

Here stretched in ranks the levell'd swarths are found,

Sheaves heap'd on sheaves here thicken up the ground.

With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands;

The gatherers follow, and collect in bands;

And last the children, in whose arms are borne

(

Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn.

The rustic monarch of the field descries,

With silent glee, the heaps around him rise.

A ready banquet on the turf is laid,

Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade.

The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare;

The reaper's due repast, the woman's care.

Next, ripe in yellow gold, a vineyard shines,

Bent with the ponderous harvest of its vines;

A deeper dye the dangling clusters show,

And curl'd on silver props, in order glow:

A darker metal mix'd intrench'd the place;

And pales of glittering tin the inclosure grace.

To this, one pathway gently winding leads,

Where march a train with baskets on their heads,

(

Fair maids and blooming youths,) that smiling bear

The purple product of the autumnal year.

To these a youth awakes the warbling strings,

689

The Iliad of Homer