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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  An Evening in Autumn, near Nether Stowey, Somerset

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Nether Stowey

An Evening in Autumn, near Nether Stowey, Somerset

By Henry Alford (1810–1871)

HOW soothing is that sound of far-off wheels

Under the golden sheen of the harvest-moon!

In the shade-checkered road it half reveals

A homeward-wending group, with hearts in tune

To thankful merriment;—father and boy,

And maiden with her gleanings on her head;

And the last wagon’s rumble heard with joy

In the kitchen with the ending-supper spread.

But while I listening stand, the sound hath ceased;

And hark, from many voices lustily

The harvest-home, the prelude to the feast,

In measured bursts is pealing loud and high;

Soon all is still again beneath the bright

Full moon, that guides me home this autumn night.