Emily Pauline Johnson

Harvest Time

PILLOWED and hushed on the silent plain,
Wrapped in her mantle of golden grain,
 
Wearied of pleasuring weeks away,
Summer is lying asleep to-day,—	
 
Where winds come sweet from the wild-rose briers
And the smoke of the far-off prairie fires.
 
Yellow her hair as the golden-rod,
And brown her cheeks as the prairie sod;
 
Purple her eyes as the mists that dream
At the edge of some laggard sun-drowned stream;
 
But over their depths the lashes sweep,	
For Summer is lying to-day asleep.
 
The north wind kisses her rosy mouth,
His rival frowns in the far-off south,
 
And comes caressing her sunburnt cheek,
And Summer awakes for one short week,—
 
Awakes and gathers her wealth of grain,
Then sleeps and dreams for a year again.