I
Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
_______Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
_______With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
to bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
_______And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
______________To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
_______With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
_______For Summer hast o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
II
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
_______Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
_______Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
_______Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
______________Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
_______Steady thy laden head across a brook;
_______Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
______________Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
III.
Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
_______Think not of them, thou hast thy music too--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
_______And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
_______Among the river sallows, borne aloft
______________Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
_______Hedge crickets sing; and now with treble soft
_______The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
______________And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.