The Harvest

What’s left of our toil among these vale, during the light of each waning season, where the summer has ripened not a single wage, and now no voice shall own the reason.

But yet amid such bonds of earthly chains, doth our harvest dances among the boughs, for where trees yield only some feeble strains, dawn mellows a fresh harvest lush on green brows.

Can we gather the shadows folded close? Is the grove wrapped in time’s prevailing soul? Can we beckon the air, a gentle windswept close, after boughs rejuvenate ‘neath man’s ever-pervading toll?

For such humble meets are those every men make, woeful good tidings that flowers all throng, and whispers upon our natures break, binding roots deeper, across bright valleys long.

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti