Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
　Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun 1;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
　With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves 2 run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
　And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
　　To swell the gourd 3, and plump the hazel shells
　With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
　　For summer has o'er 4-brimm'd their clammy cells 5.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store 6?
　Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary 7 floor,
　Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing 8 wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow9 sound asleep,
　Drows'd10 with the fume of poppies11, while thy hook
　　Spares the next swath 12 and all its twined13 flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner14 thou dost keep
　Steady thy laden head across a brook;
　Or by a cyder-press15, with patient look,
　　Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring?? Ay, where are they?
　Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds 16 bloom the soft-dying day,
　And touch the stubble 17-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
　Among the river sallows 18, borne aloft 19
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
　　And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn20;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
　The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft21;
　　And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.