E CORN SONG

Heap high the farmer's wintry hoard!
Heap high the golden corn!
No richer gift has Autumn poured
From out her lavish horn!

Let other lands, exulting, glean
The apple from the pine,
The orange from its glossy green,
The cluster from the vine;

We better love the hardy gift
Our rugged vales bestow,
To cheer us when the storm shall drift
Our harvest-fields with snow.

Through vales of grass and meads of flowers,
Our ploughs their furrows made,
While on the hills the sun and showers
Of changeful April played.

We dropped the seed o'er hill and plain,
Beneath the sun of May,
And frightened from our sprouting grain
The robber crows away.

All through the long, bright days of June
Its leaves grew green and fair,
And waved in hot midsummer's noon
Its soft and yellow hair.

And now, with autumn's moon-lit eves,
Its harvest-time has come,
We pluck away the frosted leaves,
And bear the treasure home.

There, richer than the fabled gift
Apollo showered of old,
Fair hands the broken grain shall sift,
And knead its meal of gold.

Let vapid idlers loll in silk
Around their costly board;
Give us the bowl of samp and milk,
By homespun beauty poured!

Where'er the wide old kitchen hearth
Sends up its smoky curls,
Who will not thank the kindly earth,
And bless our farmer girls!

WHITTIER

SPORTS IN NORMAN ENGLAND

After dinner all the youth of the city go into the field of the suburbs,
and address themselves to the famous game of football. The scholars of
each school have their peculiar ball; and the particular trades have,
most of them, theirs. The elders of the city, the fathers of the
parties, and the rich and wealthy, come to the field on horseback, in
order to behold the exercises of the youth, and in appearance are
themselves as youthful as the youngest; seeming to be revived at the
sight of so much agility, and in a participation of the diversion of
their festive sons.

At Easter the diversion is prosecuted on the water; a target is strongly
fastened to a trunk or mast fixed in the middle of the river, and a
youngster standing upright in the stern of a boat, made to move as fast
as the oars and current can carry it, is to strike the target with his
lance; and if, in hitting it, h