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Quotations about Autumn
Welcome to my perpetually-in-progress collection of quotations about autumn, the best season of the year!
Falling and whirling, and fluttering down,
Beautiful leaves, all crisp and brown;
Decking the grave where the Summer lies,
Under the grey of the Autumn skies...
~Lizzie Marshall Berry (1847–1919), "Leaves," Heart Echoes: Original Miscellaneous and Devotional Poems, 1886
The bright summer had passed away, and gorgeous autumn was flinging its rainbow-tints of beauty on hill and dale. ~Cornelia L. Tuthill, "Virginia Dare: Or, the Colony of Roanoke," 1840
Velvet shadows come and go,
Drifting, whisp'ring breezes,
Winged adieus that sadly blow,
Wave the shadow friezes:
Ghostly branches, bare of leaves,
Gently bend in sorrow;
Summer's parting kiss deceives—
Winter comes tomorrow.
~W. Dayton Wegefarth (1885–1973), "Autumn," Rainbow Verse: A Book of Helpful Sunny Philosophy, 1919
The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.... September is dressing herself in showy dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894), "Autumn," The Atlantic Almanac, 1868
I love the moment in the early dew
of an autumn morn
when the sun peeks through
and the land is kissed
by the velvet lips
of a bright day hiding
in the morning mist.
~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Beautiful leaves that the Autumn's breath
Woos to the blush and then kisses to death...
~Lizzie Marshall Berry (1847–1919), "Leaves," Heart Echoes: Original Miscellaneous and Devotional Poems, 1886
Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love — that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot, letter to Miss Lewis, 1st October 1841
No spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face....
~John Donne, "Elegy IX: The Autumnal"
Oh how we love pumpkin season. You did know this
Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze...
~Emily Dickinson
A hidden fire burns perpetually upon the hearth of the world.... In autumn this great conflagration becomes especially manifest. Then the flame that is slowly and mysteriously consuming every green thing bursts into vivid radiance. Every blade of grass and every leaf in the woodlands is cast into the great oven of Nature; and the bright colours of their fading are literally the flames of their consuming. The golden harvest-fields are glowing in the heart of the furnace.... By this autumn fire God every year purges the floor of nature. All effete substances that have served their purpose in the old form are burnt up. Everywhere God makes sweet and clean the earth with fire. ~Hugh Macmillan
falling leaves
hide the path
so quietly
~John Bailey, "Autumn," a haiku year, 2001, oldgreypoet.wordpress.com
[T]he sun declined, and we both fell into twilight silence. Night, which in autumn seems to fall from the sky at once, it comes so quickly, chilled us, and we rolled ourselves in our cloaks... ~Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Les Diaboliques
Pale amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees....
Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream...
~Ernest Dowson (1867–1900), "Autumnal"
Autumn repays the earth the leaves which summer lent it. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
Spring has gone
And the growing's past,
And the time for the harvest is here at last...
~Frances M. Frost, "Lullaby," Hemlock Wall, 1929
I have been treading on leaves all day until I am
And the Autumn clutches the forests green
In a hasty and eager clasp;
But the leaves are true to the Summer they love,
And they wither and fade in his grasp.
~J.J. Britton (1832–1913), "Death"
When Summer's swirl of dust and heat
Makes you long for cooling showers,
For slanting sun-light, so replete
With all the gorgeousness of flowers;
You wish for a sweet and pelting rain,
And in your thought, intensely yearn,
For Autumn's coming, once again
When the leaves begin to turn...
~Elon Allan Richards, "When the Leaves Begin to Turn," The Poet Man,
The days may not be so bright and balmy—yet the quiet and melancholy that linger around them is fraught with glory. Over everything connected with autumn there lingers some golden spell—some unseen influence that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power. ~Northern Advocate
The human soul is slow to discover the real excellence of things given to us by a bountiful Creator, and not until the shadows of death begin to gather around the object that we love, do we see its worth and beauty. Autumn is the dim shadow that clusters about the sweet, precious things that God has created in the realm of nature. While it robs them of life, it tears away the veil and reveals the golden gem of beauty and sweetness. Beauty lurks in all the dim old aisles of nature, and we discover it at last. ~Northern Advocate
And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen [Beauty] dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair." ~Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), The Prophet
...Oh, ye Autumn winds,
What tales of mystery ye tell to me.
Of Time and Death, I hear ye whispering
In every leaf that rustles 'neath my feet.
~Fanny Fielding, "Dreaming," 1800s [pseudonym of a "talented and educated lady" from Virginia
Wind of the autumn — O melancholy beauty,
Touch me once — one instant — you and I shall never part!
~John Gould Fletcher, "The Night Wind"
Shorter days bestir
a wake of falling colors
whose sound is silence.
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996)
By what a subtle alchemy the green leaves are transmuted into gold, as if molten by the fiery blaze of the hot sun! A magic covering spreads over the whole forest, and brightens into more gorgeous hues. The tree-tops seem bathed with the gold and crimson of an Italian sunset. Here and there a shade of green, here and there a tinge of purple, and a stain of scarlet so deep and rich, that the cunning artifice of man is pale beside it. A thousand delicate shades melt into each other... like a tapestry woven with a thousand hues. Magnificent Autumn!... he comes like a warrior, with the stain of blood upon his brazen mail...
The wind... wafts to us the odor of forest leaves, that hang wilted on the dripping branches, or drop into the stream... The dry leaves whirl in eddies through the air. A fret-work of hoar-frost covers the plain. The stagnant water in the pools and ditches is frozen into fantastic figures. Nature ceases from her labors, and prepares for the great change. In the low-hanging clouds, the sharp air, like a busy shuttle, weaves her shroud of snow. There is a melancholy and continual roar in the tops of the tall pines, like the roar of a cataract. It is the funeral anthem of the dying year. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dead leaves heap on the window-sill,
Dead leaves drift on the path below,
And full of wintry, prophetic chill
The dreary tempests of autumn blow.
~Elizabeth Anne Chase Akers Allen, "Married and Gone," The Sunset–song and other Verses, 1902
...I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, 10th October 1842
Come, pensive Autumn, with thy clouds, and storms,
And falling leaves, and pastures lost to flowers;
A luscious charm hangs on thy faded forms,
More sweet than Summer in her loveliest hours...
~John Clare, "To Autumn," The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, 1821
Autumn is passing through us,
And we are in love...
~James Oppenheim, "In an Old Square," Golden Bird, 1923
Hear them falling, falling, like a whisper of the dead,
Like memory's voices calling, paving the path we tread
With crimson hues and golden, like a mosaic olden.
~Ouina (Cora L. V. Scott Richmond), given through her Medium "Water Lily," "Autumn Leaves," Ouina's Canoe, 1882
Methinks I see the sunset light flooding the river valley, the western hills stretching to the horizon, overhung with trees gorgeous and glowing with the tints of autumn—a mighty flower garden, blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, Frost... ~John Greenleaf Whittier, "Patucket Falls"
It is a delightful pastime to sit in the pleasant sunshine of autumn, and gazing from this little spot of free earth over such a landscape, let the imagination luxuriate amid the thrilling associations of the scene! ~H.T. Tuckerman, "San Marino"
There is a far sweet song in autumn
That catches at my throat,
I hear it in each falling leaf
And in each wild bird's note...
~George Elliston, "Mine Own," Bright World, 1927
The transparent haze which rests upon the mountain-top at noon,—the calmness in the air, and the clearness of the sky, now have a most mysterious influence upon the heart. The "still small voice" of nature makes us thoughtful; and seems to invite us to think upon the swiftness with which our days are passing away. How often at such an hour, have I been startled by the beating of my own heart! And the sunsets of Autumn,—are they not gorgeous beyond description? more so than the brightest dreams of poetry? ~Charles Lanman, "The Dying Year," 1840
[A]rrayed in gypsy dress of pink and gold,
Crest of crimson tint and folds of fading green,
Stand the woods in tranquil beauty as of old,
Stretching into vistas dim and opaline;
When the Year is ripe and mellow it is meet
Earth should echo, "Peace is blessed; rest is sweet."
~C.B. Galbreath, "Autumn Afternoon," This Crimson Flower, In Flanders Field—An Answer, and Other Verse, 1919
The time of the falling leaves has come again. Once more in our morning walk we tread upon carpets of gold and crimson, of brown and bronze, woven by the winds or the rains out of these delicate textures while we slept.
How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days! There are exceptions, of course. The leaves of most of the fruit-trees fade and wither and fall ingloriously. They bequeath their heritage of color to their fruit. Upon it they lavish the hues which other trees lavish upon their leaves....
But in October what a feast to the eye our woods and groves present! The whole body of the air seems enriched by their calm, slow radiance. They are giving back the light they have been absorbing from the sun all summer.
~John Burroughs, "The Falling Leaves," Under the Maples
The breath of autumn had already passed along the foliage, and a coming death had spread over its hues golden, brown and crimson—a strange gaiety of decay, which, with all its beauty, carries an idea of sadness into one's heart. ~T.H.E., "The German's Daughter," 1840
When autumn dulls the summer skies,
And paler sunshine softly lies
Upon the brown and fallow lands:—
As fairy artists come in bands
To paint with brushes dipped with frost:—
They pay with gold, for verdure lost...
~Vere O. Wallingford (1876–1945), "The Cottonwood Trees," in Poems of Trees, 1932
Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life. ~Hal Borland
It’s so easy to fall for fall. ~Keith Wynn, Instagram post, 2019
'Tis Autumn! and the short'ning day,
The chilly evening's sober gray,
And winds that hoarser blow;
The fading foliage of the trees,
Which rustles sere in every breeze,
The approach of Winter show.
~Bernard Barton, "Stanzas on the Approach of Winter" (stanza I), Napoleon and Other Poems, 1822
A beauty lights the fading year... ~Phebe A. Holder, "A Song of October," in The Queries Magazine, October 1890
The placid appearance of the dying year, the softness of the sky, and the warm color of foliage deceive us, and we are always surprised by the first cold weather of the autumn. ~Charles Dudley Warner, Backlog Studies, 1873 [a little altered
He loved to wander through the amber haze,
Across the meadows, to the upland where
Sat Autumn pensively amid her sheaves,
Marking the alchemy which all too soon
Transmutes to gold the treasure of her leaves,
In the long season's mellow afternoon,
And touches naked boughs wherethrough the sad wind grieves.
~Francis Howard Williams, "A Dreamer," The Flute-Player and Other Poems, 1894
The music of the far-away summer flutters around the Autumn seeking its former nest. ~Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Stray Birds
When the Year from fruitful labor turns to rest...
Founts of warmth and comfort in my being flow...
~C.B. Galbreath, "Autumn Afternoon," This Crimson Flower, In Flanders Field—An Answer, and Other Verse, 1919
In limpid morning blue the canyoned
Autumn wood unhangs its pastel works.
Slender, sleeveless, lifted arms compete
With fallen canvases at our feet.
Two perched crows honk their discovery.
A hare springs and signals with his tail.
We walk silenced, our leaning bodies
Drawn close in the vocal vacuum,
Our keyed minds sounding the season's role
In the brotherhood of a forest...
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Autumn Walk"
[L]o! the eventide of the year, the melancholy season of Autumn.... the widowed quail, which is shivering on the fallen tree, utters her plaintive cry, causing a momentary sadness to oppress his heart. The oak rears its head above the plain, but is stripped of its foliage,—naked and alone,—a fit emblem of man in the hour of adversity. We see the leaves floating on the bosom of the river, and we feel that such too will soon be our condition. ~Charles Lanman, "The Dying Year," 1840
...there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky...
~Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
I cannot write of things which even impassioned breath cannot utter. Autumn is coming with its days of gold, its days of reverie and of you — oh, such delightful hours that my heart burns within me at the anticipation. ~Byron Caldwell Smith (1849–1877), letter to Kate Stephens (1853–1938)
The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest eve...
~William Blake (1757-1827), "To Autumn"
...the world reveals itself in its true dimensions in the Autumn... ~Hal Borland
Look, how the maple o'er a sea of green
Waves in the autumnal wind his flag of red!
First struck of all the forest's spreading screen,
Most beauteous, too, the earliest of her dead.
~Jones Very (1813–1880), "The Frost"
You will find the blue hills... with the autumnal shadows silently sleeping on them, and there will be a glory lingering round the day, so you'll know autumn has been here; and the setting sun will tell you... ~Emily Dickinson, letter to brother Austin, Amherst, Massachusetts, 1851
And myriad leaves, on which the Summer wrote
Her blushing farewell, at my feet were strown.
~Albert Laighton (1829–1887), "In the Woods," c.1859
Autumn, that welcome sigh of summer,
cools the air. A trail of green yet lingers
where excess held out a hand.
It comes in its usual way, loaded,
offering fruits in tones of color
amid beginnings of submission.
Leaves and animals make their change.
Not far off another visitor
awaits his turn, to give in his way.
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Autumn '77," Wind in the Bell Tower, 1980
Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods. Every step that Time takes imprints upon the fields as they grow bare and brown... ~Charles Nodier, Trilby, ou le lutin d'Argail/Trilby: The Fairy of Argyle, 1822
Just after the death of the flowers,
And before they are buried in snow,
There comes a festival season,
When nature is all aglow—
Aglow with a mystical splendour
That rivals the brightness of spring,
Aglow with a beauty more tender
Than aught which fair summer could bring....
~Emeline B. Smith, "Indian Summer"
[A]utumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. She occupied her mind as much as possible in such like musings and quotations... ~Jane Austen
Summer's flurry
Of green is over,
Apples are ripe,
Mown is clover.
Colors, ablaze
On mountains, burn,
Smolder, and flame
As the seasons turn.
Harvest moon
Comes up at dusk,
Gold as a pumpkin
Or corn in the husk...
~Harry Behn (1898–1973), "Autumn," The Golden Hive, 1966
Autumn is springtime in reverse. ~Terri Guillemets, "Falling up," 1999
I walked alone in the depths of Autumn woods;
The ruthless winds had left the maple bare;
The fern was withered, and the sweetbrier's breath
No longer gave its fragrance to the air.
~Albert Laighton (1829–1887), "In the Woods," c.1859
When the pumpkin is golden yellow,
And the squash blossom's blown away,
When the harvest apple is mellow,
And the skies seem strangely gray;
When the Sun is late appearing
And the early sun-sets gloriously burn,
Then you know that Fall is nearing,
When the leaves begin to turn.
~Elon Allan Richards, "When the Leaves Begin to Turn," The Poet Man,
We might call it fall fever, but we don't, perhaps because it is restlessness rather than lassitude. It is more like wanderlust, though the wanderer merely wants to go, to see new places, and the urgency now is to see old, familiar places again. Autumn burnishes the memories as well as the hills. ~Hal Borland, "The Summons," October 1967
Autumn is Earth's dual moment when she sees
Scattered by the breeze
All her fruits, and ended in apparent death,—
Sees herself a wraith
As her red and yellow veils she slowly strips
One by one, and slips
Through her vapours, till her body bare
Has a lean and half-starved air;—
Yet the moment when what's outwardly decayed
Is but lowly laid,
In her fertile bosom to be fed and nurst,
Hungry and athirst,—
Yea! the mystic moment when eternal end
And beginning blend,
And the thing that we count dead is rife
With inevitable life!
~Harriet L. Childe-Pemberton, Nenuphar: The
Suddenly summer's work is over, and whatever trials there were are done with. My heart is light... I am standing in a new-minted world, summer folded away like a rose pressed in a book. ~Gladys Taber, "Fall," Stillmeadow Sampler, 1959
The Season was waning to its close. The gardens showed but little of the ravages of autumn as yet. The noble avenues of trees were still in their glory of fulness and expansive verdure; although here and there a few fallen leaves seemed to have fluttered down to earth as premature heralds of decay. The later flowers were gorgeous in their many-coloured splendour, though their earlier sisters had already lived the best of their lives, and now drooped their heads, as if to hide their blighted charms. ~J. Palgrave Simpson, For Ever and Never, 1884
A glorious crown the year puts on... ~Phebe A. Holder, "A Song of October," in The Queries Magazine, October 1890
Dame Nature blends her colors on the palette of the breeze... ~Elon Allan Richards, "When the Leaves Begin to Turn," The Poet Man,
The rich death-colours of autumn were like an infinitely sad melody, like a sad song of unavailing regret; but in those passionate tints, in the red and the gold of the apples, in the varied hue of the fallen leaves, there was still something which forbade one to forget that in the death and decay of nature there is always the beginning of other life. ~W. Somerset Maugham, 1900
This is the feast-time of the year
When hearts grow warm and home more dear;
When Autumn's crimson torch expires
To flash again in winter fires;
And they who tracked October's flight
Through woods with gorgeous hues bedight,
In charmèd circle sit and praise
The goodly log's triumphant blaze.
~Harriet McEwen Kimball (1834–1917), "The Feast-Time of the Year," c.1880
I step outside and the chilly air tightens the skin on my bare arms. Summer has ended all too quickly, and some of the leaves on the trees have already started to burn with the colors of fall. Fall colors.... so bright and intense and beautiful. It's like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary. ~Siobhan Vivian, Same Difference
Around and around the house the leaves fall thick—but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener sweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full barrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. ~Charles Dickens, Bleak House
O autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof, there thou mayst rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
~William Blake (1757-1827), "To Autumn"
"I'm dreading fall. It is a terrifying season," he says... "Everything shriveling up and dying." I don't know how to answer. Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. I've never thought to be frightened of it. ~Lauren DeStefano, Wither
We do not migrate as the birds do, but I notice there is a change in the rhythm of our life when the season ebbs... There is a quickening in the blood, a restlessness. Suddenly we are full of projects, which may be our own manner of migrating. ~Gladys Taber, "Fall," Stillmeadow Sampler, 1959
green-veined leaves suddenly blushing copper
bronze-edged trees swaying in autumn breezes
gold foliage drifting past pewter branches baring all
brass-hued leaflets dying in beauty, falling in grace
~Terri Guillemets, "In the Autumn Wood," 2016
There he goes, in his long russet surtout, sweeping down yonder gravel-walk, beneath the trees, like a yellow leaf in autumn wafted along by a fitful gust of wind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), "The Sexagenarian," of Monsieur d'Argentville
Somewhere along the way, I realized that the new year doesn't begin for me in January. The new and fresh has always come for me in the Fall. Ironically, as leaves are falling like rain, crunching beneath my feet with finality, I am vibrating with the excitement of birth and new beginnings... My year begins in Autumn. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, "On birthday cake and pouring oil," betsygarmon.com, 2013
I cherish the loneliness of autumn... I am forty, I have become mortal. I have no further psychic, emotional, or intellectual need to prolong summer seasons, and it is only when autumn begins its play that I can truly focus on the rich and vital life I am living. All of a sudden I grow alert. October is a hallelujah! reverberating in my body year-round... The air is dusty, it smells of dry pine needles; yet I sense imminent ice in the clear blue sky... How I appreciate everything… fully! After all, tomorrow this reprieve will be buried by blizzards, crushed under slabs of doomsday ice. I cannot waste a minute indoors! I must take advantage of this gift, wedged so tentatively between summer's hectic somnolence and winter's harsh apogee... Each perfect day, I know, is going to be the last beautiful day of autumn. ~John Nichols (b.1940), The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn
The tree thrives on its own trash and the seed sprouts in its parent's midden heap. Each new spring grows on autumn's leftovers. ~Hal Borland, "Autumn's Leftovers," November 1975
Sated and weary the Summer is lying,
Dreamily living his youth again,
And the harvest sprites are flitting and flying,
Fanning his brows with the golden grain...
And the flowers fold up from the close dense air,
And a shadowy sleep sits everywhere.
~J.J. Britton (1832–1913), "Death"
Fallen leaves of Tulip Poplar rainplastered everywhere. Autumn's going out with a "splat!" ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), @Raqhun, tweet, 2009
The cool, bright days,
The calm, bright days,
With their liberal-hearted noons!
The clear, still nights,
The restful nights,
With their greatening harvest-moons...
~Harriet McEwen Kimball (1834–1917), "In Autumn," c.1864
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.... As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye... ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. ~Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Autumn! sad, sighing, yet most lovely Autumn, again art thou here; and again with feelings "pleasant but mournful to my soul," do I greet thy return. And the strangest feelings of mingled pleasure and pain are awakened at thy approach, though thou excitest emotions less rapturous and fancies less playful, yet hath thy presence for me a solace and a spell unfelt amid the greener verdure, brighter sunbeams and more fragrant flowers of Summer. Dearer to me than the clustering roses of June, are they withered stalk and falling leaf.... And for the heart, the busy, changeful human heart, thou hast a thousand stirring chords, whose vibrations awaken with an electric influence its slumbering sensibilities, and whose sympathetic music responds with all the truth of an echo. ~Elizabeth J. Eames, "An Autumn Reverie," October 1840
...I see
the turning of a leaf
dancing in an autumn sun,
and brilliant shades of crimson
glowing when a day is done...
~Hazelmarie "Mattie" Elliott, "A Breath of Heaven"
Gilbert and Anne... were sauntering through the shadows of the Haunted Wood. Beyond, the harvest hills were basking in an amber sunset radiance, under a pale, aerial sky of rose and blue. The distant spruce groves were burnished bronze, and their long shadows barred the upland meadows. But around them a little wind sang among the fir tassels, and in it there was the note of autumn. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915
Fall is a crazy dancer—
Look, how he whirls in leaves;
How happy Death is to be stamping with him—
There, on the stricken body
Of grass, of mortal green...
~Mark Van Doren, "Dance of Death," The Autobiography of Mark Van Doren, 1958
Essentially, autumn is the quiet completion of spring and summer. Spring was all eagerness and beginnings, summer was growth and flowering. Autumn is the achievement summarized, the harvested grain, the ripened apple, the grape in the wine press. Autumn is the bright leaf in the woodland, the opened husk on the bittersweet berry, the froth of asters at the roadside. ~Hal Borland, "Autumn," September 1967
Day by day the vine-leaves curl
Revealing the heavily hanging grapes
In tempting clusters of rarest shapes,
That out of the heart of summer grew;
Dusky-purple and amber-white,
Warmed in the nooning and cooled in the night,
Mingled of honey, and sunlight, and dew.
~Harriet McEwen Kimball (1834–1917), "In Autumn," c.1864
The sun tires of summer and sighs itself into autumn. ~Terri Guillemets
The frost has walked across my world,
Has killed the sallows and has curled
The ferns. Ah, Summer, at what cost,
For harvest, you invite the frost!
~Philip Henry Savage (1868–1899), Poems, 1898
Ah, yes, autumn, when the trees blush at the thought of stripping naked in public. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The garden still is green
And green the trees around,
But the winds are roaring overhead
And branches strew the ground.
And to-day on the garden pool
Floating an autumn leaf;
How rush the seasons, rush the years,
And, O, how life is brief!
~Richard Watson Gilder, "Early Autumn," The Atlantic Monthly, July 1908
There is no season in all the year so beautiful, so radiant with glory, as the early autumn. There is no time when the human soul drinks in so fully the glory and beauty of nature. All objects of beauty are more beautiful while passing away from us. The closing up of a beautiful life—the fading of the holy stars in the dim light of morning—the ending of a quiet summer day and the passing away of the bright summer glory, are all more sweet and lovely as they are lost to us. The death-glow always beautifies anything that wears the trace of beauty ere it goes back to nothingness. We do not understand the secret of this principle, yet we know that it is some law of the infinite mind. ~Northern Advocate
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day!
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree...
~Emily Brontë
Dulled to a drowsy fire, one vaguely sees
The sun in heaven, where this broad, smoky round
Lies ever brooding at the horizon's bound...
[T]hrough damp desolate woodlands' naked trees...
Like sighs from spirits of perished hours, resound
The melancholy melodies of the breeze!
~Edgar Fawcett, "Indian Summer," in The Atlantic Monthly, November 1877
The last faded autumn leaflet hangs from a frozen branch, just a short fall from the tree to winter. ~Terri Guillemets
It was in the declining flush of a beautiful autumn evening, that I stood alone in the quiet solitude of a stately forest's edge. I had wandered long, in the spirit of deep and solemn meditation, through scenes which might well arouse the soul of the poet, or quicken the painter's eye.... The forest was full of rich coloring and exuberant foliage. Scarlet, purple, gold—the different shades of brown, from its darkest and reddest duskiness, to the palest fawn hue—a soft and saddening intermixture of greyish tints, contrasting with the glossy green of the yet unchanged oak, the monarch of trees, and his many and strong wood relatives—and with the bluer verdure of the pines, the silver-lined laurel leaves, and the feathery cedar—all these were mingled to make a splendor gorgeous, yet harmonious, and as I gazed upward at the sun, which beamed, mild and red, through an atmosphere of blue and softening mist, I caught his ruby glance down the glossy green ash-leaves, and thought in my soul that there ought to be, if there were not, an inhabiting spirit for every leaf in the forest, and for every rich sun-gleam that colored and rayed the air, in this glowing and glorious Indian summer! ~Mary Howard, "Mr. Lindsay's Manuscript," c.1840
We followed up the winding road
Where shore and river kissed each other,
And Nature's peace our hearts o'erflowed
That lingering October weather.
Against the backdrop of the pines
The birch and maple leaned together;
A flame ran through the blackberry vines
That lingering October weather.
~Harriet McEwen Kimball (1834–1917), "The Lingering October Weather," Poems, 1889
The genial sunlight melts on the hills
The breath of the morning white and cold;
By the wayside bend sprays of aster bloom
And the forest turns to russet and gold...
~C. B. Galbreath, "Autumn Leaves," October 1918
The Autumn Leaves they skip;
When blasts the trees are stripping;
Bounding, whirling,
Sweeping, twirling,
And in wanton
Mazes curling...
~Thomas Hood
The frosty brightness of the autumn colors faded in the winds of October. By November the red and gold leaves that had heaped the woods road were shriveled and brown. ~Gerald Raftery (1905–1986), Snow Cloud, 1951
It was early autumn — autumn at the time it is sobered but not yet saddened by the thought that winter is coming. ~Marguerite A. Power, "The Wedding-Dress," 1857
Sweet cider now, and punkin pize,
And maidens fair, and doughnuts greasy:
Who wouldn't be a farmer's boy,
So phull ov phun, so free and eazy?
~Josh Billings
The verse of autumntide is set to soberer measures than that of the other seasons. The evening of the year has come; and as the shadows draw closer with each successive month, the poetry of the season passes by slow degrees from the major key of early September to the sad minor or late November. ~Oscar Fay Adams, September, 1886
shorter days seem a little ominous
shadows are becoming autumn'ish
~Terri Guillemets
There are those who shudder at the approach of Autumn; and who feel a light grief stealing over their spirits, like an October haze, as the evening shadows slant sooner, and longer, over the face of an ending August day. But is not Autumn the Manhood of the year? Is it not the ripest of the seasons?
Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, shivering gray,
Earth knows no desolation,
She smells regeneration
In the moist breath of decay.
~George Meredith (1828–1909), "Ode to the Spirit of Earth in Autumn"
I am struck by the simplicity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal tints. ~Henry David Thoreau, Oct. 12, 1852
Autumn breathes in golden sunshine and breathes out a frosty chill. ~Terri Guillemets
The matron dignity of Autumn's tread
Can bring with it a joy more grave and deep,
While Nature decks and gilds her funeral bed
Ere yet she sinks in Winter's death-like sleep.
~Fanny Charlotte Wyndham Montgomery (1820–1893), "Moonlight," 1846
The day was beautiful. Anne sat down on the old bench in Hester Gray's garden. Before, it had been lovely with narcissus and violets; now golden rod had kindled its fairy torches in the corners and asters dotted it bluely. The mellow air was full of the purr of the sea, and beyond the fields were long hills scarfed with the shadows of autumnal clouds. With the blowing of the west wind, old dreams returned. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915 [a little altered
It was one of the loveliest days in early autumn, and the general atmosphere had a tendency to subdue every feeling of the heart, and threw me in a thoughtful mood. ~Charles Lanman, "Musings," 1840
That soft autumnal time...
The woodland foliage now
Is gathered by the wild November blast...
And the bright flowers are gone.
But these, these are thy charms—
Mild airs, and tempered light upon the lea,
And the year holds no time within his arms,
That doth resemble thee....
The year's last, loveliest smile,
Thou com'st to fill with hope the human heart,
And strengthen it to bear the storms awhile,
Till winter's frowns depart....
Far in a sheltered nook,
I've met, in these calm days, a smiling flower,
A lonely aster, trembling by a brook,
At the quiet noontides' hour:
And something told my mind
That, should old age to childhood call me back,
Some sunny days and flowers I still might find
Along life's weary track.
~John Howard Bryant (1807-1902), "The Indian Summer"
We are having such lovely weather — the air is as sweet and still — now and then a gay leaf falling — the crickets sing all day long — a thousand little painters are tingeing hill and dale.... autumn is most beautiful... How happy if you were here to share these pleasures with us — the fruit should be more sweet, and the dying day more golden — merrier the falling nut if with you we gathered it... ~Emily Dickinson, letter to brother Austin, Amherst, Massachusetts, early October 1851
Autumn is Spring turned antique. ~Terri Guillemets
After the first autumn rains, how inimitable the beauty of days — the fall colors, not yet faded, washed out, in the winter deluge, but dripping, glistening, every crystal drop refracting the hue it trickles over. Running, draining color, brighter before the soil takes back again the positive red and yellow and blue to weave into the misty textures of spring. ~Virginia Garland, "The Rain," Out West: A Magazine of the Old Pacific and the New, February 1908
Adieu to those more cheerful hours,
Spent amid Spring's unfolding flowers,
Or Summer's soothing shade;
A few short weeks,—and then adieu
To fields and groves of changeful hue,
By Autumn's hand array'd!
~Bernard Barton, "Stanzas on the Approach of Winter" (stanza II), Napoleon and Other Poems, 1822
For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad. ~Edwin Way Teale, Autumn Across America, 1956
Autumn frosts have slain July... ~Lewis Carroll, "Life Is But a Dream"
So ghostly and strange a look the blurred world wears,
Viewed from this flowerless garden's dreary squares,
That now, while these weird, vaporous days exist,
It would not seem a marvel if where we walk
We met, dim-glimmering on its thorny stalk,
Some pale, intangible rose, with leaves of mist!
~Edgar Fawcett, "Indian Summer," in The Atlantic Monthly, November 1877
How pleasant to walk over beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling fallen leaves... How beautiful they go to their graves! how gently they lay themselves down and turn to mould! — painted of a thousand hues and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their graves, light and frisky... Merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting their graves, whispering all through the woods about it. They that waved so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again... as well as to flutter on high! How they are mixed up, all species — oak and maple and chestnut and birch! They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay. Nature is not cluttered with them. She is a perfect husbandman; she stores them all. ~Henry David Thoreau
Soon as divine September, flushing from sea to sea,
Peers from the whole wide upland into eternity,
Soft as an exhalation, ghosts of the thistle start:
Never a poet saw them but ached in his baffled heart.
Gossamer armies rising thicker than snowflakes fall,
Waken in blood and marrow, aware of the unheard call.
Oh, what a nameless urging through avenues laid in air,
Hints of escape, unbodied, intricate, everywhere...
~Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920), "Autumn Magic"
The days of autumn are shorter, and they hurry along as if they had more important business elsewhere. ~Raymond Carlson, "Invitation to Autumn," Arizona Highways, October 1946, arizonahighways.com
in the wheel of Earth's years
we watch as Autumn's clock
tick-tocks in tiny goldenrod
September petal'd seconds
frosty trees bleed scarlet hours
through veins of October leaves
amber minutes wither and fall
drifting in November's breeze
and the silent strike of midwinter
turns December's snowflake gears
~Terri Guillemets
Thanksgiving is the winding up of autumn. The leaves are off the trees, except here and there on a beech or an oak; there is nothing left on the boughs but a few nuts and empty birds' nests. The earth looks desolate, and it will be a comfort to have the snow on the ground, and to hear the merry jingle of the sleigh-bells. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
...but i have lived in autumn too long.
this is the hardest season; when once-growing
things decay and die,
and then remain where they died to torture
the mind with memories of springtime...
~Ken Sekaquaptewa and Candy St. Jacques, Sahuaro, 1970, yearbook of the Associated Students of Arizona State University
How plain that death is only the phenomenon of the individual or class! Nature does not recognize it; she finds her own again under new forms without loss. Yet death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life... Every blade in the field, every leaf in the forest, lays down its life in its season, as beautifully as it was taken up. It is the pastime of a full quarter of the year. Dead trees, sere leaves, dried grass and herbs — are not these a good part of our life? And what is that pride of our autumnal scenery but the hectic flush, the sallow and cadaverous countenance of vegetation? its painted throes, with the November air for canvas?
When we look over the fields we are not saddened because these particular flowers or grasses will wither; for the law of their death is the law of new life.
Will not the land be in good heart because the crops die down from year to year? The herbage cheerfully consents to bloom, and wither, and give place to a new. So it is with the human plant. We are partial and selfish when we lament the death of the individual, unless our plaint be a pæan to the departed soul, and a sigh, as the wind sighs over the fields, which no shrub interprets into its private grief.
One might as well go into mourning for every sere leaf; but the more innocent and wiser soul will snuff a fragrance in the gale of autumn, and congratulate Nature upon her health. ~Henry David Thoreau, letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1842
Love, though the fallen leaf
Mark, and the fleeting light
And the loud, loitering
Footfall of darkness
Sign, to the heart
Of the passage of destiny,
Here is the ghost
Of a summer that lived for us,
Here is a promise
Of summers to be.
~W. E. Henley, "Rhymes and Rhythms"
Autumn leaves blaze their swan song of colors and wait for Winter to wipe the slate clean. ~Terri Guillemets
Season of beauty, joy and gladness,
Time of sunshine, breeze and shower,
Colors blend with riotous madness,
With earth a veritable beauty bower.
Autumn leaves and Autumn fancies,
Annually come and go and return;
And shower a million happy glances,
When the leaves begin to turn.
~Elon Allan Richards, "When the Leaves Begin to Turn," The Poet Man,
It has been said that in human life there are moments worth ages... in the climate of England there are, for the lover of Nature, days which are worth whole months, — I might say — even years. One of these favoured days sometimes occurs in spring-time, when that soft air is breathing over the blossoms and new-born verdure... But it is in autumn that days of such affecting influence most frequently intervene... the lights and shadows are more delicate; the colouring is richer and more finely harmonized; and, in this season of stillness, the ear being unoccupied, or only gently excited, the sense of vision becomes more susceptible of its appropriate enjoyments... The happiest time is when the equinoxial gales are departed; but their fury may probably be called to mind by the sight of a few shattered boughs, whose leaves do not differ in colour from the faded foliage of the stately oaks from which these relics of the storm depend: all else speaks of tranquility; — not a breath of air, no restlessness of insects, and not a moving object perceptible — except the clouds gliding in the depths of the lake... ~William Wordsworth
Wild is the music of the autumnal wind
Among the faded woods; but these blithe notes
Strike the deserted to the heart;—I speak
Of what I know, and what we feel within.
~William Wordsworth
Up on the hillside an autumn orchard stretches in beauty, with a wealth of precious stones; the red leaves of the persimmons burn like fiery opals, and the late apples... blush like tourmalines amongst their green leaves, while here and there a solitary quince shines out like a yellow sapphire from its silver setting. ~Amy E. Mack, "Autumn Jewels," Bush Days, 1911
All up the autumn hillsides,
And down the valley ways,
And by the singing rivers,
The jewels of autumn blaze.
The sumach has its garnets,
Rose hips to corals turn;
On mountain ash and alder
Blood red the rubies burn.
And beads are on the linden,
And beads are on the thorn,
And beads the brier and woodbine
And trailing grape adorn.
With lapis, sard, and jasper,
With amethyst and jade,
The trees and shrubs and vinings
Of autumn are arrayed.
~Wilhelmina Seegmiller, "Autumn Jewels," Sing a Song of Seasons, 1914
The Limberlost was now arrayed like the Queen of Sheba in all her glory. The first frosts of autumn had bejeweled her crown in flashing topaz, ruby and emerald. About her feet trailed the purple of her garments and in her hand was her golden scepter. Everything was at full tide. It seemed as if nothing could grow lovelier, and it was all standing still a few weeks, waiting coming destruction. ~Standard History of Adams and Wells Counties Indiana, 1918
Light understands the colors of Autumn, and she loves him for it. ~Terri Guillemets, "The falling is mutual," 2016
The ash trees grow crimson in color, and lose their summer life in great gouts of blood. The birches touch their frail spray with yellow; the chestnuts drop down their leaves in brown, twirling showers. The beeches crimped with the frost, guard their foliage, until each leaf whistles white, in the November gales. The bitter-sweet hangs its bare, and leaf-less tendrils from rock to tree, and swaps with the weight of its brazen berries. The sturdy oaks, unyielding to the winds, and to the frosts, struggle long against the approaches of the winter; and in their struggles, wear faces of orange, of scarlet, of crimson, and of brown; and finally, yielding to swift winds, — as youth's pride yields to manly duty, — strew the ground with the scattered glories of their summer strength; and warm, and feed the earth, with the debris of their leafy honors.
...the ailanthus, with all its greenness gone, — lifts up its skeleton fingers to the God of Autumn and of storms, — the dog-wood still guards its crown; and the branches which stretched their white canvas in April now bear up a spire of bloody tongues, that lie against the leafless woods, like a tree on fire.
The golden days! the golden days!
Warm with sunshine and dreamy with haze;
Warm with the sunshine and cool with the breeze!
Like troops of tropical butterflies
Clouds of leaves from the gorgeous trees
Flutter and fall,
And cover the earth with splendid dyes
Matching the marvels of sunset skies.
~Harriet McEwen Kimball (1834–1917), "In Autumn," c.1864
[O]nly a few more days of August were to run, and September seemed already to have claimed the gardens, the fields, and the skies. ~Jeanie Gwynne Bettany Kernahan, The Sinnings of Seraphine, 1906
Cuing the capers of finished leaves
In the end scene of this year's drama.
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Autumn Walk"
...autumn winds shaking color from the trees... ~Terri Guillemets
How the leaves are sped
From the bent trees and the wood's ground is leoparded
With gold and flame...
~Frances Frost, "Autumn Wood," Pool in the Meadow: Poems for Young and Old, 1933
Time remorselessly rumbles down the corridors and streets of our lives. But it is not until autumn that most of us become aware that our tickets are stamped with a terminal destination… that whatever can be done with our thoughts, words, and actions must be done soon. As we hypnotically watch the steadily diminishing reserve of sand in Life's hourglass, the instincts of a miser surface. Life is now savored, sipped as with a fine nineteenth-century French wine... It is during the autumn of our lives that this inner vintage begins to sculpt and paint the face as it seeps through the skin from within. ~Joe L. Wheeler, Remote Controlled: How TV Affects You and Your Family
To her bier
Comes the year
Not with weeping and distress, as mortals do,
But, to guide her way to it,
All the trees have torches lit;
Blazing red the maples shine the woodlands through...
~Lucy Larcom, "The Indian Summer"
The autumn with which we live is as variable as the wind, the weather, the land itself... Go to northern Maine and you can walk with frost. Go to Carolina and you can bask in late summer sun. Travel north or south and you touch the year in another place. Stay where you are and it comes to you in its own time... Leave the equinox to the record-keepers and know autumn where you find it, when it comes. ~Hal Borland, "Autumn," September 1967
Autumn leaves
Poets breathless
~Terri Guillemets
Soon the leaves will all be turning,
From their many shades of green,
Into colors bright and gorgeous...
Reds and yellows, browns and orange,
Underneath the smiling sun,
Each leaf vying with the other
In the change they've now begun.
Giving up their Summer wardrobes,
Gladly; joyfully, with glee,
Putting on their Autumn trousseau,
As they leave their mother tree...
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "The Wedding of the Leaves," 1940s
The autumn night got chilly, crystaled by the first frosts of the dying year. ~R. D. Lawrence (1921–2003), The North Runner, 1979
Autumn air ignites the heart
with crisp leaved dreams returning
where flame and glory recklessly
pile memories for burning!
~Lorraine Babbitt, "Phantom Fires," in Arizona Highways, November 1970, arizonahighways.com
And in my heart, sweet Autumn, thou art the awakener of many, many things. At thy touch the deep fountain of memory is stirred, and its shadowy bank is thronged with many cherished images and hallowed recollections of the Past! ~Elizabeth J. Eames, "An Autumn Reverie," October 1840
Autumn thanks the sun with an abundant harvest. ~Terri Guillemets
[A] shudder crawls thro' the darkening skies,
And the clouds knit close, like a leaden wall,
And thicker and thicker the red leaves fall...
~J.J. Britton (1832–1913), "Death"
Autumn mornings: sunshine and crisp air, birdsong and calmness, year's end and day's beginnings. ~Terri Guillemets, "Spectral harmonies," 2010
The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees...
~William Blake (1757-1827), "To Autumn"
The Sussex lanes were very lovely in the autumn. I started going for long lone country walks among the spendthrift gold and glory of the year-end, giving myself up to the earth-scents and the sky-winds and all the magic of the countryside which is ordained for the healing of the soul. ~Monica Baldwin, I Leap Over the Wall: Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-Eight Years in a Convent
Earth lays down her garment,
And her round neck is bent
In prayer most innocent.
She turneth low the light,
And slumbers through the night
In the plucked fruits' scent.
~H. Kay, "Harvest"
The leaves, a few weeks ago so green and shiny and sparkling in the sunlight, have turned to yellow, gold, red and brown for the touch of autumn is a magic touch and autumn is in the air. ~Raymond Carlson, "Invitation to Autumn," Arizona Highways, October 1946, arizonahighways.com
Summer plays beneath the sultry sun,
Autumn brings lots of work to be done...
~Terri Guillemets, "Harvest," 2007
There is no sound in the world to me like the crisp crackle of autumn leaves underfoot, no sight like the blazing red, yellow, and russet foliage and the dim and dusty purple of the distant hills, and no tonic like the tonic of the fresh air of
To me it seems that youth is like spring, an overpraised season — delightful if it happen to be a favoured one, but in practice very rarely favoured and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. ~Samuel Butler (1835–1902), Ernest Pontifex, or, The Way of All Flesh, written c.1872–1884, published 1903
Autumn, gorgeous in yellow and red,
Is the harvest time, when man is led
To garner the fruits of sweat and toil
From dear Mother Earth, the deep rich soil...
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "The Four Seasons," 1940s
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives, all bear secret relation to our destinies. It gave me indescribable pleasure to see the return of the tempestuous season... ~François-René de Chateaubriand, "My Autumn Joys"
Autumn doesn't always promise that Winter will come, but she works hard until every colored leaf has reached its destination. ~Terri Guillemets, "Autumnus opus," 2016
Ev'ry season hath its pleasures:
Spring may boast her flow'ry prime,
Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures
Brighten autumn's sob'rer time...
Nor regret the blossoms dying,
While we still can taste the fruit.
~Thomas Moore, "Spring and Autumn" [written in the context of aging
Winter dies into the spring, to be born again in the autumn. ~Terri Guillemets
At the close of a long hot summer, the appearance of the pumpkin heralds the welcome arrival of autumn. ~Kari Spencer, themicrofarmproject.com
Fall, temperatures, fall, fall! Let the weather mellow and the year drift into peacefulness. ~Terri Guillemets
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps — does anyone know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning... ~Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, 1914
Autumn will come whether or not you enjoyed summer. ~Terri Guillemets
A'though it cums 'long ev'ry year,
It allus makes me feel that queer
An' sort o' juicy round the eyes—
The time, I mean, when dead leaves flies.
An' when the birds hez lost ther tune,
An' when the dark draps down too soon,
An' through the boughs an' all erlong
The road, the wind its dismal song
Jes' kind o' howls an' kicks up tricks
With all the crisped-up leaves an' sticks,
An' flings the dust right in yer eyes;
An' when the dull clouds heavy lies
Acrost the sky an' makes you think
The ole year's jes' begun ter sink—
Wall, that's erbout the time o' year
I allus feel so kind o' queer!
The summer days hez up an' fled,
An' most the trees is painted red;
The jay-bird's stopped his little flute
An' skipped off in his bed-tick suit;
The lily's head hez drapped down low
As o'er it now the chill streams flow,
An' through the air a suddint quack
Cums tellin' us the wil'-duck's back.
The hick'ry nuts drap off the trees
An' makes a feller think he sees
The woods a-sheddin' of ther tears
A-thinkin' of the passin' years;
'Cos when the wind blows s'rill an' cold
A feller feels he's growin' old;
He's sort o' juicy round the eyes—
The time, I mean, when dead leaves flies!
~Kimball Chase Tapley, "Gettin' Along," 1800s
A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year's last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Song," 1830
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun...
~John Keats (1795–1821), "To Autumn"
The day after the day that I walk out the front door and the air is crisp, with just a hint of the Autumn days ahead, I put cinnamon in my coffee. ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, betsygarmon.com
Autumn is the antidote to stifling summer. ~Terri Guillemets, "Remedy falls," 2006
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life. The rich colours of grass and earth were intensified by the mellow light of a sun almost warm enough for spring... ~P.D. James, A Taste for Death, 1986
...on hill and valley and stream, is lain the spell of silence; and the deep stillness of the air is unbroken... ~Elizabeth J. Eames, "An Autumn Reverie," October 1840
Leaves, questioned by winter, fall. ~Terri Guillemets
Spring blossoms are fairy tales, autumn leaves are tragic dramas. ~Mehmet Murat İldan, mehmetmuratildanresmiwebsitesi.wordpress.com
Opal-tinted, and golden, and brown,
Summer's dead treasures came sailing down;
Rolling masses of clouds overhead
Passed to the rim of the evening red...
~J. J. Britton (1832–1913), "Love for All Time"
The time of autumn's death which ushers the birth pangs of winter is a strange interlude in the cycle of life and, so I believe, just as this
We want it to stay, but autumn always leaves. Beautifully. ~Terri Guillemets
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published 2000 May 18
revised 2013 Sep 17
last saved 2024 Sep 24
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