They drive home the cows from the pasture,

Up through the long shady lane,

Where the quail whistles loud in the wheat-fields,

That are yellow with ripening grain.

They find, in the thick, waving grasses,

Where the scarlet-lipped strawberry grows.

They gather the earliest snowdrops,

And the first crimson buds of the rose.

They toss the new hay in the meadow;

They gather the elder-bloom white;