On an apple-ripe September morning <br />Through the mist-chill fields I went <br />With a pitch-fork on my shoulder <br />Less for use than for devilment. <br /> <br />The threshing mill was set-up, I knew, <br />In Cassidy's haggard last night, <br />And we owed them a day at the threshing <br />Since last year. O it was delight <br /> <br />To be paying bills of laughter <br />And chaffy gossip in kind <br />With work thrown in to ballast <br />The fantasy-soaring mind. <br /> <br />As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered <br />As I looked into the drain <br />If ever a summer morning should find me <br />Shovelling up eels again. <br /> <br />And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank <br />And how I got chased one day <br />Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind, <br />How I covered my face with hay. <br /> <br />The wet leaves of the cocksfoot <br />Polished my boots as I <br />Went round by the glistening bog-holes <br />Lost in unthinking joy. <br /> <br />I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused, <br />The best job at the mill <br />With plenty of time to talk of our loves <br />As we wait for the bags to fill. <br /> <br />Maybe Mary might call round... <br />And then I came to the haggard gate, <br />And I knew as I entered that I had come <br />Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.<br /><br />Patrick Kavanagh<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-an-apple-ripe-september-morning/
