1.Heap high the farmer’s wintry hoard!1 Heap high the golden corn!
Nricher gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish2 horn!
2.Let other lands,exulting,glean The apple from the pine,The orange from its glossy green,The cluster from the vine;3.We better love the hardy gift Our rugged vales bestow,Tcheer us,when the storm shall drift Our harvest fields with snow.
4.Through vales of grass and meads3 of flowers Our plows their furrows made,While on the hills the sun and showers Of changeful April played.
5.We dropped the seed o‘er hill and plain,Beneath the sun of May,1 Hoard,a large quantify of anything laid up. 2 Lavish. profuse.3 Meads,meadows.And frightened from our sprouting grain The robber crows away.
6.All through the long,bright days of June,Its leaves grew green and fair,And waved in hot midsummer’s noon Its soft and yellow hair.
7.And now,with Autumn‘s moonlit eves,Its harvest time has come;We pluck away the frosted leaves And bear the treasure home.
8.There,richer than the fabled gift Apoll1showered of old,Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,And knead its meal of gold.
9.Let vapid2 idlers loll in silk,Around their costly board;Give us the bowl of samp3 and milk,By homespun beauty poured!
10.Where’er the wide old kitchen hearth Sends up its smoky curls,Whwill not thank the kindly earth And bless our farmer girls!
11.Then shame on all the proud and vain,1According tthe ancient fable,Apollo,the god of music,sowed the isle of Delos,his birthplace,with golden flowers,by the music of his lyre.2Vapid,spiritless,dull.3Samp,bruised corn cooked by boiling.Whose folly laughs tscorn The blessing of our hardy grain,Our wealth of golden corn!
12.Let earth withhold her goodly root;Let mildew blight the rye,Give tthe worm the orchard‘s fruit,The wheat field tthe fly:
13.But let the good old crop adorn The hills our fathers trod;Still let us,for his golden corn,Send up our thanks tGod!From Whittier’s "Songs of Labor."
