Season 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-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
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,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

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;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
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;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Rise! Sleep no more! ’Tis a noble morn:
The dews hang thick on the fringed thorn,
And the frost shrinks back, like a beaten hound,
Under the steaming, steaming ground.
Behold, where the billowy clouds flow by,
And leave us alone in the clear gray sky!
Our horses are ready and steady.—So, ho!
I’m gone, like a dart from the Tartar’s bow.
Hark, hark!—Who calleth the maiden Morn
From her sleep in the woods and the stubble corn?
The horn,—the horn!
The merry, sweet ring of the hunter’s horn.

Now, thorough the copse, where the fox is found,
And over the stream, at a mighty bound,
And over the high lands, and over the low,
O’er furrows, o’er meadows, the hunters go!
Away!—as a hawk flies full at its prey,
So flieth the hunter, away,—away!
From the burst at the cover till set of sun,
When the red fox dies, and—the day is done!
Hark, hark!—What sound on the wind is borne?
’Tis the conquering voice of the hunter’s horn.
The horn,—the horn!
The merry, bold voice of the hunter’s horn.

Sound! Sound the horn! To the hunter good
What’s the gulley deep or the roaring flood?
Right over he bounds, as the wild stag bounds,
At the heels of his swift, sure, silent hounds.
O, what delight can a mortal lack,
When he once is firm on his horse’s back,
With his stirrups short, and his snaffle strong,
And the blast of the horn for his morning song?
Hark, hark!—Now, home! and dream till morn
Of the bold, sweet sound of the hunter’s horn!
The horn,—the horn!
O, the sound of all sounds is the hunter’s horn!