Classic Poem

ON CONTEMPLATING THE HARVEST-MOON

Cloudless and full the Moon her radiance throws
O'er hill and vale; rock, tree, and crystal stream
Catch the mild radiance of her yellow gleam,
And fair and lovely all the landscape shows;
Sweet, sweet and balmy is the breeze that blows,
Waving the golden harvest....The fields team,
And glad the heart of man. Oh Moon! thy beam
Cheers the exulting swain; his rapture flows
That all his whispered hopes were not in vain.
And blithe, and cheerily, with shout and song,
With dance and jubilee, the rural throng
Follows beneath thy ray the loaded wain........
Oh! sweet it is to hear the jocund strain,
And the soft echoes that its sounds prolong.