It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
       &nbsp And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
       &nbsp And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
       &nbsp Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
       &nbsp And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
       &nbsp Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
       &nbsp With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
       &nbsp Of Nature have their image in the mind,
       &nbsp As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,
       &nbsp Only the empty nests are left behind,
       &nbsp And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.