Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/334

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306
THE MONTHS:
July.

Hail, brother August, flushed and warm
And scatheless from my storm.
Your hands are full of corn, I see,
As full as hands can be:
And earth and air both smell as sweet as balm
In their recovered calm,
And that they owe to me.

[July retires into a shrubbery.]

August.

Wheat sways heavy, oats are airy,
Barley bows a graceful head,
Short and small shoots up canary,
Each of these is some one's bread;
Bread for man or bread for beast,
  Or at very least
  A bird's savoury feast.

Men are brethren of each other,
One in flesh and one in food;
And a sort of foster brother
Is the litter, or the brood,
Of that folk in fur or feather,
  Who, with men together,
  Breast the wind and weather.

[August descries September toiling across the lawn.]

August.

My harvest home is ended; and I spy
September drawing nigh