| SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness, |
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| Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; |
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| Conspiring with him how to load and bless |
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| With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; |
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| To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, |
5 |
| And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; |
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| To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells |
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| With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, |
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| And still more, later flowers for the bees, |
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| Until they think warm days will never cease; |
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| For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells. |
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| Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? |
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| Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find |
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| Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, |
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| Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; |
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| Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, |
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| Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook |
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| Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers: |
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| And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep |
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| Steady thy laden head across a brook; |
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| Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, |
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| Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. |
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| Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? |
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| Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— |
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| While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day |
25 |
| And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; |
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| Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn |
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| Among the river-sallows, borne aloft |
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| Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; |
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| And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; |
30 |
| Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft |
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| The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; |
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| And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. |
The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond 