AUTUMN.

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

-Emily Dickinson

Autumn Song

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1883)


Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?

Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

The Autumn

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1833)


Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them —
The summer flowers depart —
Sit still — as all transform’d to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, —
Their presence may be o’er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh’d our mind,
Shall come — as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind — view not the woods;
Look out o’er vale and hill —
In spring, the sky encircled them —
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn’s scathe — come winter’s cold —
Come change — and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne’er be desolate.

To Autumn

John Keats (1820)


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-eves 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,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-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 barred 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 red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Thank you Sue.

Autumn is really here again.




The flowers flee from Autumn, but not you -
You are the fearless rose
that grows amidst the freezing wind.

Rumi
************

The garden of
Love
is green without
limit
and yields many
fruits
other than sorrow
and joy.
Love is beyond either
condition:
without spring,
without autumn,
it is always fresh.

RUMI

A blade of grass

Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, "You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams."

Said the leaf indignant, "Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing."

Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again -- and she was a blade of grass.

And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, "O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams."



K.Gibran

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps- does anybody know where it was borne? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born . . . .

- Rabindranath Tagore

Deeply enjoyable poems.

I loved the talk of the leave and the grass blade best ... K. Gibran shows such depth and beauty.

Love and enjoy your Autumn. I think Canada offers incredible colors in this season with all of its forests.

Love,
Margherita

Autumn in Switzerland



River waters moan:

reflections of warm colors

on departing leaves





Thank you for the inspiration for the haiku!

love
Margherita

Thank you for the lovely thread.

You are correct Margherita, autumn in Canada is very colourful. It is an artist's palette.

Love,
yoko


The years first day
thoughts and loneliness;
the autumn dusk is here.

-Basho

Thank you Sue for starting this lovely thread.
Autumn here is a very lovely and colourful season.

Thank you Margherita for your nice words.

Sincerely,
Gisele

"It is only her in large portions of Canada that wonderous second wind,
the Indian summer, attains its amplitude and heavenly perfection, -- the
temperatures; the sunny haze; the mellow, rich delicate, almost
flavoured air: Enough to live -- enough to merely be."

- Walt Whitman, Diary in Canada

"Come said the wind to
the leaves one day,
Come o're the meadows
and we will play.
Put on your dresses
scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone
and the days grow cold."

- A Children's Song of the 1880's

Besides the Autumn poets sing
by Emily Dickinson

Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze --

A few incisive Mornings --
A few Ascetic Eves --
Gone -- Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" --
And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."

Still, is the bustle in the Brook --
Sealed are the spicy valves --
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The Eyes of many Elves --

Perhaps a squirrel may remain --
My sentiments to share --
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind --
Thy windy will to bear!



Robert Bateman

Thank you Margherita,
and thank you everyone for your contribution to this thread.

Love,
Sue

quote:

Autumn in Switzerland



River waters moan:

reflections of warm colors

on departing leaves



Thank you for the inspiration for the haiku!

love
Margherita

______________________________________________________

From:

When it was autumn in Eden by Ian Emberson
When it was autumn in Eden
and chestnuts held golden leaves
against dimming light ,
Eve touched her toes on the sodden
soil - ran fingers through harvest sheaves
- feeling all things were right :
and hip and haw turned red - the sloe to dusk
and swallows gathered in flocks with waitful wings....

By lonely roads this lonely poet marches into autumn dusk.

-Basho

Thank you Margherita, for this little gem.

quote:

Autumn in Switzerland



River waters moan:

reflections of warm colors

on departing leaves



Thank you for the inspiration for the haiku!

love
Margherita

**********************************************

The autumn flowers here are still very beautiful.

Thank you yoko for the little Basho and the image.

By lonely roads this lonely poet marches into autumn dusk.

-Basho
~~~~~~~

Thank you Inda for the image.
The autumn Asters and Chrisanthemums are truly at their best at the moment.

Love,
Sue

Let life be as beautiful as summer flowers
And death as beautiful as autumn leaves.

From: ON THE SHORES OF ETERNITY,
Poems from Tagore on Immortality and Beyond,

new English versions by Deepak Chopra

Autumn Birds by John Clare

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught.
The flopping crows on weary wings go by
And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.
The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,
And darken like a clod the evening sky.
The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.
The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below.