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SEASON 1 of mists and mellow fruitfulness! | |
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; | |
Conspiring with him how to load and bless | |
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; | |
To bend with apples the mossd cottage-trees, | 5 |
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; | |
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells | |
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, | |
And still more, later flowers for the bees, | |
Until they think warm days will never cease, | 10 |
For Summer has oer-brimmd their clammy cells. | |
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Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? | |
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find | |
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, | |
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; | 15 |
Or on a half-reapd furrow sound asleep, | |
Drowsed with the fumes of poppies, while thy hook | |
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; | |
And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep | |
Steady thy laden head across a brook; | 20 |
Or by a cider-press, with patient look, | |
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. | |
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Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? | |
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, | |
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, | 25 |
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; | |
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn | |
Among the river sallows, borne aloft | |
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; | |
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; | 30 |
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft | |
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, | |
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. | |