THE HUSKERS
It was late in mild October, and the long autumnal rain Had left the summer harvest-fields all green with grass again; The first sharp frosts had fallen, leaving all the woodlands gay With the hues of summer's rainbow or the meadow flowers of May.
Through a thin, dry mist, that morning, the sun rose broad and red; At first a rayless disk of fire, he brightened as he sped; Yet even his noontide glory fell chastened and subdued On the cornfields and the orchards and softly pictured wood.
And all that quiet afternoon, slow sloping to the night, He wove with golden shuttle the haze with yellow light; Slanting through the tented beeches, he glorified 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 laughed, they knew not why; And schoolgirls, gay with aster-flowers, beside the meadow brooks, Mingled the glow of autumn with the sunshine of sweet looks.
From spire and barn looked westerly the patient weathercocks; But even the birches on the hill stood motionless as rocks. No sound was in the woodlands save the squirrel's dropping shell, And the yellow leaves among the boughs, low rustling as they fell.
The summer grains were harvested; the stubble-fields lay dry, Where
June winds rolled, in light and shade, the pale 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 sear, Unfolded from their ripened charge, shone out the yellow ear; Beneath, the turnip lay concealed in many a verdant fold, And glistened in the slanting light the pumpkin's sphere of gold.
There wrought the busy harvester, and many a creaking wain Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain; Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down at last, And like a merry guest's farewell the day in brightness passed.
And lo! as through the western pines, on meadow, stream, and pond, Flamed the red radiance of a sky set all afire beyond, Slowly o'er the eastern sea-bluffs a milder glory shone, And the sunset and the moonrise were mingled into one!
As thus into the quiet night the twilight lapsed away, And deeper in the brightening moon the tranquil shadows lay, From many a brown old farmhouse and hamlet without name, Their milking and their home-tasks done, the merry huskers came.
Swung o'er the heaped-up harvest, from pitchforks in the mow, Shone dimly down the lanterns on the pleasant scene below, The glowing pile of husks behind, the golden ears before, And laughing eyes and busy hands and brown cheeks glimmering o'er.
Half hidden in a quiet nook, serene of look and heart, Talking their old times over, the old men sat apart; While up and down the unhusked pile, or nestling in its shade, At hide-and-seek, with laugh and shout, the happy children played.
Urged by the good host's daughter, a maiden young and fair, Lifting to light her sweet blue eyes and pride of soft brown hair, The master of the village school, sleek of hair and smooth of tongue, To the quaint tune of some old psalm, a husking-ballad sung.