4454905Opals — Harvest NoonOlive Custance

Harvest Noon

It is the harvest; on the fields
Hovers a tremulous haze of heat . . .
The sharpened scythe each labourer wields
Gleams silver in the golden wheat.

The level landscape spreads away—
The sky folds over like a flower,
Whose petal tips of purple grey
Flush flame-like at the sunset hour.

The swallows flash above our heads
In undulating curves of flight.
A delicate dance the south wind treads
Between the shadows and the light. . . .

And poplar trees on either hand
Lilt out leaf music as we pass. . . .
Only the aureoled daisies stand
And stir not, in the tangled grass. . . .
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