Poem by Charles Sangster

Harvest Hymn

GOD of the Harvest, Thou, whose sun
 Has ripened all the golden grain,
We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store,
The cup of Plenty running o'er,
 The sunshine and the rain!

The year laughs out for very joy,
 Its silver treble echoing
Like a sweet anthem through the woods,
Till mellowed by the solitudes
 It folds its glossy wing.

But our united voices blend
 From day to day unweariedly;
Sure as the sun rolls up the morn,
Or twilight from the eve is born,
 Our song ascends to Thee.

Where'er the various-tinted woods,
 In all their autumn splendour dressed,
Impart their gold and purple dyes
To distant hills and farthest skies
 Along the crimson west:

Across the smooth, extended plain,
 By rushing stream and broad lagoon,
On shady height and sunny dale,
Wherever scuds the balmy gale
 Or gleams the autumn moon:

From inland seas of yellow grain,
 Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest,
With willing hands and keen-edged scythe,
And accents musically blythe,
 Reveals its lordly crest:

From clover-fields and meadows wide,
 Where moves the richly-laden wain
To barns well-stored with new-made hay,
Or where the flail at early day
 Rolls out the ripened grain:

From meads and pastures on the hills
 And in the mountain valleys deep,
Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine
Of famous Ayr or Devon's line
 And shepherd-guarded sheep:

The spirits of the golden year,
 From crystal caves and grottoes dim,
From forest depths and mossy sward,
Myriad-tongued, with one accord
 Peal forth their harvest hymn.

1. Lyric to the Isles
2. The Soldiers of the Plough
3. The Plains of Abraham

Felicia Hemans Harvest Hymn ("Now autumn strews on every plain")

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