The harvest's sickle, as it gleams
Like the crescent moon in streams,
Brown with shade and night that run
Under shores and forests dun.

Lusty Labour, with tired stoop,
Levels low, at every swoop,
Armfuls of ripe-coloured corn,
Yellow as the hair of morn;
And his helpers track him close,
Laying it in even rows,
On the furrow's stubbly ridge;
Nearer to the poppied hedge.
Some who tend on him that reaps
Fastest, pile it into heaps;
And the little gleaners follow
Them again, with whoop and halloo
When they find a hand of ears
More than falls to their compeers.

Ripening in the dog-star's ray,
Some, too early mown, doth lay;
Some in graceful shocks doth stand
Nodding farewell to the land
That did give it life and birth;
Some is borne, with shout and mirth,
Drooping o'er the groaning wain.
Through the deep embowered lane;
And the happy cottaged poor,
Hail it, as it glooms their door,