Haymaking

When the weather is good towards the end of summer, the farmers come into the village and pick up all of those who are willing to come into the fields and lend a hand to make the hay. It's pleasant, if hard work, and the farmers usually hand round cider or beer. By the end of the day, with the sun going down, drowsy with the heat and tired from the exertion, the lads and lasses sit down on the bales, or on the back of the waggon and watch the sunset. Looking over the hills turning from yellow, to green and then blue in the dusk, they think how good the day has been and wonder if anything will ever change.

The Shropshire Lad (excerpt)

AE Housman

Into my heart a wind that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content I see it shining plain, The happy highways where once I went, And cannot come again.