One of Samuel Palmer mystical pastural moonscape painting's (image courtesy of British Museum). Samuel Palmer 1805 - 1881
The Harvest MoonThe flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie in the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through the heaven, like a bassoon.
The earth replies all night, like a deep drum.
So people can't sleep,
So they go out where the elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religous hush.
The harvest moon has come!
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry 'We are ripe, reap us!' and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills
Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)
