The Rapture of the Year in  General   

While skies glint bright with bluest light
Through clouds that race o'er fields and town,
And leaves go dancing left and right,
And orchard apples tumble down;
While school-girls sweet, in lane or street,
Lean 'gainst the wind and feel and hear
Its glad heart like a lover's beat,--
So reigns the rapture of the year.

The ho! and hey! and whop-hooray!
Though winter clouds be looming,
Remember a November day
Is merrier than mildest May
With all her blossoms blooming.

While birds in scattered flight are blown
Aloft and lost in dusky mist,
And truant boys scud home alone
'Neath skies of gold and amethyst;
While twilight falls, and Echo calls
Across the haunted atmosphere,
With low, sweet laughs at intervals,--
So reigns the rapture of the year.

The ho! and hey! and whop-hooray!
Though winter clouds be looming,
Remember a November day
Is merrier than mildest May
With all her blossoms blooming.

By James Whitcomb Riley

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Other poems by James Whitcomb Riley:

• A Barefoot Boy
• A Life-Lesson
• A Noon Interval
• A Parting Guest
• A Passing Hail
• A Song of the Road
• A Summer Afternoon
• Almost Beyond Endurance
• At Broad Ripple
• Granny
• Knee-Deep in June
• Liberty
• Nine Little Goblins
• Orlie Wilde
• Our Hired Girl
• The Bumblebee
• The Harper
• The Merman
• The Old Guitar
• The Old Times Were the Best
• The Raggedy Man
• The Rapture of the Year
• The Ripest Peach
• The Rival
• The Song of Yesterday
• The Willow
• There Was a Cherry-Tree
• To a Boy Whistling
• Unless
• We to Sigh Instead of Sing
• Wet-weather Talk
• When the Frost is on the Punkin
• Who Bides His Time
• Ylladmar