Now the strong foliage bears the standards high,
And shoots the tall top-gallants to the sky;
The suckling ears their silky fringes bend,
And pregnant grown, their swelling coats distend;
The loaded stalk, while still the burthen grows,
O’erhangs the space that runs between the rows;
High as a hop-field waves the silent grove,
A safe retreat for little thefts of love,
When the pledg’d roasting-ears invite the maid,
To meet her swain beneath the new-form’d shade;
His gen’rous hand unloads the cumbrous hill,
And the green spoils her ready basket fill;
Small compensation for the twofold bliss,
The promised wedding, and the present kiss.
Slight depredations these; but now the moon
Calls from his hollow tree the sly raccoon;
And while by night he bears his prize away,
The bolder squirrel labours thro’ the day.
Both thieves alike, but provident of time,
A virtue, rare, that almost hides their crime.
Then let them steal the little stores they can,
And fill their gran’ries from the toils of man;
We’ve one advantage where they take no part,—
With all their wiles they ne’er have found the art
To boil the Hasty-Pudding; here we shine
Superior far to tenants of the pine;
This envied boon to man shall still belong,
Unshar’d by them in substance or in song.
At last the closing season browns the plain,
And ripe October gathers in the grain;
Deep-loaded carts the spacious corn-house fill,
The sack distended marches to the mill;
The lab’ring mill beneath the burthen groans,
And showers the future pudding from the stones;
Till the glad house-wife greets the powder’d gold,
And the new crop exterminates the old.
CANTO III.
The days grow short; but tho’ the falling sun
To the glad swain proclaims his day’s work done,
