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Elegy Written In A NH Barnyard: The Passing of Summer
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The pecking hens winds slowly o’er the lea,
The groundskeeper homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the farm to darkness and to me.
Now fades the summer landscape on the sight,
And all the air an Autumn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Beneath that rugged birch, that maple’s shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Summer in his narrow cell ’til next year laid,
The busiest season of Tamworth to sleep.
For now the blazing hearth shall burn,
With extensive housework to take care:
We run to meet winter’s return,
The next long months to bear,
The harvest to our sickle bar did yield,
Our sweat from stubborn heat has broke;
How jocund did they drive the John Deere afield!
How bow’d the chaffs beneath its sturdy stroke!
The Epitaph
Here rests Summer days upon the lap of Earth
A season for sowing both seeds and elation.
Fair afternoons brought us humble mirth,
And Labor Day marks the end of vacation.
No farther seek sun-drenched memories to disclose,
Or draw our schemes for the seasons ahead
(Crisp days and much raking before repose),
The trees of Great Hill, already red.
Robin McDowell née Thomas Gray (1716-71)
Written by robin on 09/02/2010 in Blog | Food | Gardening | Philosophy | The Farm | Theory/Criticism
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