Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Sonnets. II. Autumn. 1. “A glorious day!”Josiah Conder (1789–1855)
From “Autumn in Four Sonnets”
A
Her pillow’d lace no thrifty housewife weaves
Nor platters sit beneath the flow’ry eaves:
The golden fields an ample harvest yield;
And every hand, that can a sickle wield,
Is busy now. Some stoop to bind the sheaves,
While to the o’erburden’d waggon one upheaves
The load, among its streamers half conceal’d.
We heard the ticking of the lonely clock
Plain through each open door—all was so still.
For, busily dispersed near every shock
Their hands with trailing ears the urchins fill.
Where all is clear’d, small birds securely flock,
While full on lingering day the moon shines from the hill.