Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-01-07
POETRY
From The National Era.
Songs of Labor.
TIE II USKERS.
BY JOHN q. WHITTIER.

With the hues Of summers rainbow or tn
meadow flowers Of May.
Through a thin dry mist that morning the SUI
rose broad and red,
At first a rayless disc of fire, 1t frightened J. al
it sped;
Yet, even its noontide glory fell chasteneC
and subdued
On the corn-felds and the orchards and softly
pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping tc
the night,
1t wove with golden shuttle the haze with
yellow light;
Slanting through the painted b%eeches, il glo'
rifed the hill,
And beneath it pond and meadow lay brighter,
greener still.
And shouting boys in woodland haunts caught
glimpses of that sky,
Flecked by the many-tinted leaves, and laugh
ed they knew not why;
And schoolgirls, gay with aster lowers be-
side the meadow brooks,
Mingled the glow OF autumn with The sum
shine of sweet looks.
From spire and barn looked westerly the pa
tient weather-cocks,
But, even the birches on the hills stood mo-
~tionless as rocks;
No sound was in the woodlands, save the
squirrels dropping shell,
And the yellow leaves among the boughs,
low r%ustling as they fell.
The summer grains were harvested the stub
BILE fields lay dry,
Nhoro luna ,,indc VolloA in LIGHT and qhana
the p%ale-green waves of rye;
But still, on gentle hill-slopes, in valleys
fringed with wood,
Ungathered, bleaching in the sun, the heavy
corn crop stood.
Bent low by autumn's wind and rain, through
husks that dry and sere
Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone
out the yellow ear;
Beneath the turnip lay concealed in many a.
verdant fold,
And glisiened in the s~lanting lightthe pump
kin's sphere of gold.
There wrought the busy harvester, and many
a creaking vain
Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load Of
husk and grain;
Till, rayless as he rose that morn, sank down
at last the sum-,
Ending the day Of dreamy light and warmth
as it begun.
And 10 through the western pines, on mea-
dow, stream, and pond,
Planned the red radiance of a sky, set all afre
beyond,
Slowly DER the Eastern sea.bluffs a milder
glory shone,
And 1he sunset and the moonrise were min
gled into one!
As thus into the quiet night the sunset lapsed
away,
And deeper in the Frightening moon the tran.
quill shadows lay,
From many a brown old farmhouse and ham,
let without name,
Their milking and their home tasks done, the
merry huskers came.
Swung DER the heaped-up harvest, from pitch
forks in the NOW,
Shone dimly down the lanterns on the plea
SAINT scene below;
The growing pile of husks behind, the COLDER
ears before,
And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown
cheeks %glimmering DER.
f1dlI niuueH III d duioe HUN, ooioHS u iooi
and heart,
Talking their old times over, the old men sa
apart,
While, up and down the unhusked pile, o
nesting in its shade,
At hide and seek with laugh and shout, III,
happy children played.
Urged by the good hosts daughter, a nader
Young and fair,
Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and prid
of soft brown hair,
The master Of the village school, sleek of hal
and smooth of tongue,
To the quaint tune of some old psalm a husk
ing ballad sung:
Heap high the farmers wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!
Let other hands, exulting, CLEAN
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine,
We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged Wales bestow,
To cheer US when the snow shall drift
Our harvest fields with snow.
When spring time came with flower and b.
And grasses green and young,
And merry Boblinks, in the wood,
Like mad musicians sung,
We dropped the seed DER hill and plain
Beneath the sun,of May,
And frightened from our sprouiing grain
The robber crows away.
All through the long, bright days of Jur
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.
And now with Autumn's moonlit ewes
It's harvest time has come,
W. rluck away the frosted leaves,