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Aftermath

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
 And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
 And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
 Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowan mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
 In the silence and the gloom.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | 1890
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