Saturday, October 19, 2019

October poems

An October Afterglow     John Atkinson Grimshaw




“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; --
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.”

― Thomas Hood





Fall in Adirondack Park, New York State         photo by Melissa Nehls Buechner




Autumn Colors

"At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost."



~ Rainer Maria Rilke












"The sweet calm sunshine of October, now

    Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold
The pur0ple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough
    drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold."



-   William Cullen Bryant






"How innocent were these Trees, that in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious color clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell."




-   Siegfried Sassoon, October Trees














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