A Fall Bouquet of Poetry

In celebration of the first day of Autumn.

On the Approach of Autumn

Farewell! gay Summer! now the changing wind
   That Autumn brings, commands thee to retreat;
It fades the roses which thy temples bind
   And the green sandals which adorn thy feet.
Now flies with thee the walk at eventide,
   That favoring hour to bright-eyed Fancy dear,
When most she loves to seek the mountain side
   And mark the pomp of twilight hast'ning near.
Ah then, what faery forms around her throng!
   On every cloud a magic charm she sees:
Sweet Evening these delights to thee belong,
   But now alas! comes Autumn's chilling breeze
And early night attendant on its sway
Bears in her envious veil, sweet fancy's hour away.

Amelia Opie
A Century of Sonnets (1999) #95
ed. Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson

To the Fringed Gentian

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night,

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frost and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

William Jennings Bryant
The Treasury of American Poetry p. 65
ed. Nancy Sullivan

Indian Summer

'Tis said, in death, upon the face
Of age, a momentary trace
Of infancy's returning grace
   Forestalls decay;

And here, in Autumn's dusky reign,
A birth of blossom seems again
To flush the woodlands fading train
   With dreams of May.

John Banister Tabb
The Poetry of Father Tabb p. 89
ed. Francis A. Litz, Ph.D.

After Apple-Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

Robert Frost
Poetry pp. 68f
ed. Edward Connery Lathem

Mater Dolorosa

Again maternal Autumn grieves,
As blood-like drip the maple leaves
   On Nature's Calvary,
And every sap-forsaken limb
Renews the mystery of Him
   Who died upon a Tree.

John Banister Tabb
The Poetry of Father Tabb p. 91
ed. Francis A. Litz, Ph.D.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
   For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats
The Oxford Book of English Verse #627
ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch

Written in Autumn

O Autumn! how I love thy pensive air,
   Thy yellow garb, thy visage sad and dun!
   When from the misty east the laboring Sun
Bursts through thy fogs, that gathering round him, dare
Obscure his beams, which, though enfeebled, dart
   On the cold, dewy plains a luster bright:
   But chief, the sounds of thy reft woods delight;
Their deep, low murmurs to my soul impart
A solemn stillness, while they seem to speak
   Of Spring, of Summer now for ever past,
   Of drear, approaching Winter, and the blast
Which shall ere long their soothing quiet break:
   Here, when for faded joys my heaving breast
   Throbs with vain pangs, here will I love to rest.

Mary Tighe
A Century of Sonnets (1999) #279
ed. Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.

The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

W. B. Yeats
Collected Works: The Poems # 143
ed. Richard J. Finneran

Written in a Shrubbery Towards the Decline of Autumn

See, o'er its withering leaves, the musk-rose bend,
   And scarce a purple aster paints the glade;
Yet, cease awhile, ye ruffling winds! to rend
   This variegated canopy of shade.
Here, autumn's touch the rich dark brown bestows,
   There, mixed with paler leaves of yellow hue,
The shining holly's scarlet fruitage glows,
   And crimson berries stud the deep-green yew.
Thou radiant orb! whose mild declining ray
   Now gilds with gayer tinge this loved retreat,
Yet, lingering, still prolong the golden day.—
   How vain the wish! no more thy glories meet
My dazzled eye; but from the lakes arise
Blue mists, and twilight gray involves the blushing skies.

Mrs. B. Finch
A Century of Sonnets (1999) #198
ed. Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson

(See also A Spring Bouquet of Poetry: In celebration of the first day of Spring.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 09/23/03 08:32:03 AM
Categorized as Literary & Most Notable.