But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing, Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things growing,

Though dust to dust return, I think I'li scarcely

mourn,

If I may change into green things growing.

CORNFIELDS

By Mary Howitt

HEN on the breath of autumn

breeze,

From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought
The fair white thistle-down,
O then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest hill!

What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,

And see all round on sun-lit slopes
The piled-up stacks of corn;
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.

I feel the day I see the field,
The quivering of the leaves,
And good old Jacob and his house

Binding the yellow sheaves;

And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.

I see the fields of Bethlehem,
And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickles' stroke -
And Boaz looking on ;
And Ruth, the Moabite so fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.

Again I see a little child,

His mother's sole delight,— God's living gift unto

The kind, good Shunamite ; To mortal pangs I see him yield, And the lad bear him from the field.

The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,

That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see;

And the dear Saviour takes his way
'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day.

O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!
The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves,
To me are like a dream.

The sunshine and the very air

Seem of old time, and take me there.

AUGUST

By Celia Thaxter

UTTERCUP nodded and said good-by,

Clover and daisy went off
together,

But the fragrant water-lilies lie
Yet moored in the golden
August weather.

The swallows chatter about their flight,

The cricket chirps like a rare good fellow, The asters twinkle in clusters bright,

While the corn grows ripe and the apples mellow.

WILD GEESE

By Celia Thaxter

HE wind blows, the sun shines, the birds sing loud,

The blue, blue sky is flecked with fleecy dappled cloud, Over earth's rejoicing fields the children dance and sing,

And the frogs pipe in chorus, "It is spring! It is spring!"

The grass comes, the flower laughs where lately

lay the snow,

O'er the breezy hill-top hoarsely calls the crow,

By the flowing river the alder catkins swing, And the sweet song-sparrow cries, "Spring! It is spring!

Hark, what a clamor goes winging through the sky! Look, children! Listen to the sound so wild and high!

Like a peal of broken bells, -kling, klang, kling, Far and high the wild geese cry, "Spring! It is spring!"

Bear the winter off with you, O wild geese dear! Carry all the cold away, far away from here; Chase the snow into the north, O strong of heart and wing,

While we share the robin's rapture, crying, "Spring! It is spring!"

THE SANDPIPER

By Celia Thaxter

CROSS the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I,
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood
bleached and dry.

The wild waves reach their
hands for it,

The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I.

Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach

I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,
One little sandpiper and I.

I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry.
He starts not at my fitful song,

Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.

Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky:
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper and I?