Spring and Autumn Annals

“ So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place. Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun's summer and winter march across the heavens? ”

“ While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing,
Plastering new log-huts ’mid her branches gray;
But when the Autumn southward turns away,
Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring,
And every leaf, intensely blossoming,
Makes the year’s sunset pale the set of day. ”

“ Such is Autumn: prodigal in her magnificence, scattering largesse with a liberal hand, she is yet careless, and regardless of finish in the lesser details; she flings cloth of gold over the old chestnut, and Tyrian purple upon the oak; while the neighboring grape-vine hangs a dull and blighted garland of russet upon the forgotten aspen, still green. Spring has a dainty hand, a delicate pencil; no single tree, shrub, plant, or weed, is left untouched by her; but Autumn delights rather in the breadth and grandeur of her labors, she is careless of details. ”

“ To me there is no season so lovely as the autumn. There is a gaiety about the spring with which I have no sympathy: its perpetual revival of leaf and bloom is too great a contrast to the inner world, where so many feelings lie barren, and so many hopes withered. ”

“ Spring with her balmy air, soft refreshing showers, green fields, fragrant flowers, and merry cheerful birds; Summer, with her sultry days, her cool inviting shades, her waving fields, and delicious fruits; and Autumn, with his rich golden harvest, bright pensive dreamy days, and clear moonlight evenings, have power to rouse the minstrel from her slumbers; and even rude old Winter, clothed in clouds and storms and drifting snows, can with his icy fingers sweep her silent harp strings and wake their wildest melody. ”

“ Spring, like the jovial, playful infancy of all living creatures, represents childhood and youth; for then plants spread forth their flowers, fishes play in the waters, birds sing, and universal nature rejoices. Summer, like middle age, exhibits plants and trees full clothed in green; fruits ripen; and every thing is full of life. But autumn is comparatively gloomy; for then the leaves fall from the trees, and plants begin to wither, insects grow torpid, and many animals retire to their winter quarters. ”

“ But any day the wind might come down from the north, keen and thick and white about the summits, and leave the flowers and the cony slide covered deep beneath a drift.
Spring, summer, and autumn are all one season, all crowded together—a kind of peak piercing for a few short weeks the long, bleak, unbroken land of winter here on the roof of the world. ”

“ The cycles of Time roll with the procession of seasons. Spring is bloom; summer is growth; autumn is fruition; winter is the shroud, and beneath its cold, yet kindly fold, live the germs of a new life. ”

“ Beginning earlier,—even in February,—Spring is not compelled to burst into Summer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each opening beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the sweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its maiden charm, before, settling into the married Summer, which, again, does not so soon sober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring hastens to its bridal too abruptly. ”

“ Spring has been represented as the youth of the years—the season of pleasing hope, lively energy, and rapid increase. Summer has keen resembled to perfect manhood—the season of steady warmth, confirmed strength, and unremitting vigour. Autumn, which while it bestows the rich products of full maturity, is yet ever hastening to decline, has been aptly compared to that period, when the man, mellowed by age, yields the most valuable fruits of experience and wisdom, but daily exhibits increasing symptoms of decay. ”

“ Blows upward from the south, and wooes us sweet,
And since spring is abroad, come, let us greet
The beauty of her presence everywhere.
Come to the forest, where the oak-trees stand
Like giant patriarchs through the changing year,
The autumn leaves are rustling pale and sere
Among their branches, — yet a flowery hand
I see beneath them; ah! what secrets sweet,
And little tenderest blossoms do unfold
Here in this spot beside the oak-trees old,
Like fair young children, tired from their play,
Who seek for shelter, I behold to-day
A vision of wind-flowers blowing at their feet! ”

“ Every winter had its spring; every summer its autumn; and the heart need remember only its springs and autumns. She looked upward into the depths of pale blue ether, and followed the course of the white, drifting clouds. ”

“ Summer with us is but a brighter Spring, as our Winter only prolongs the sadness of Autumn. So our year has but two moods, a gay one and a sad one. Yet each tinges the other--the mists of Autumn veiling the gleam of Spring--Spring smiling through the grief of Autumn. When the sad mood comes, stripping the trees of their leaves, and the fields of their greenness, white mists veil the hills and brood among the fading valleys. ”

“ It goes on patiently year after year putting forth its leaves in spring and coquetting in its summer garb with its younger rivals. In autumn the pretty colored leaves fly away, and it remains bare and grim under its coating of snow and ice. ”

“ It is no less pleasant to look upon the landscape at midsummer, when the woods are in their full dress, and the valleys are covered over with corn, or in the autumn, when the harvest is being gathered in, and flowers have given place to fruit. If spring is the time of hope and promise, autumn is the season of realisation and fulfilment, and we are all content that the one should be lost in the other. ”

“ Autumn is a favorite season with American poets; they have taken great delight in singing the high-toned magnificence of the season, as well as that delicacy and sweetness of aspect which so often adds an exquisite charm to the brilliancy of autumnal beauty under our native skies. The poets of Europe have scarcely sung the delights of Spring with more eloquent fervor. We can not wonder that such should be the case; from the first tinge of peculiar coloring to the last smile of the Indian Summer, the season is full of interest and beauty, of ever-varying aspects. ”

“ Winter softens into spring, spring blushes into summer, and summer ripens into autumn,—all going on into increased good. But autumn darkens into winter, and is the only quarter that ends as the destroyed and the desolate. There is in autumn no hope, that prophetic beautifier of the foregone year. ”

“ And as winter over and gone sets in brighter relief the warmth and resurrection of springtime, so does the shadow of its approach lend a real if somewhat indefinable attractiveness to the fall months. The blooming of the late flowers, the ripening of leaf and fruit, the frosty air, the flocking of birds, all the thousand signs of the autumnal season take on a kind of pathetic and solemn interest, as being but prelusive to the whiteness and deadness so soon to cover the earth. Indeed, if there were no winter, there could be neither spring nor autumn ”

“ And in thy gardens shall spring always be, for spring lies ever at the marge of summer; and autumn also shall always tint thy gardens, for autumn always flares at winter's edge, and those gardens shall lie apart between winter and summer. ”

“ Spring or Autumn. Your decisions make me think that there must be some personal reasons when our inclination is touched or charmed. Our souls are imbued with the colours of the sky, moon, or flowers of that moment. I desire much to know how you came to know the charms of Spring and Autumn. The moon of a winter night is given as an instance of dreariness, and as it is very cold I had never seen it intentionally. ”

“ But in autumn the prospect is as fair. The harvest is over; the earth, bronzed by the summer heat, is resting after her labour and nature is making variations in the ochres and umbers that in spring were half hidden, huddled together in the steep places where nothing will flourish ”

“ The brilliant foliage of the maples stands out in relief against the dark brown of the pine-forest, while in the valley, the meadow has become green anew or glistens with the silvery hoar-frost. In these woods the autumn is more brilliant and almost lovelier than the spring. In the spring there is a capricious brightness and splendour, song and exultation everywhere. The autumn, on the contrary, is like a quiet, solemn Sabbath. ”

“ Autumn is the gathering-in time of all the year. In Spring the farmers sow their corn. It grows all the Summer and in Autumn is harvested. In Autumn we gather the garden fruit. In Autumn we pick blackberries, and is not that the finest fun of all the year? ”

“ The earth receives light from the sun, and completes its course through the heavens once a year. Each year brings Spring with her garlands of flowers, Summer—golden Summer—with her sheaves of sunlit grain, [Pg 23] Autumn with the purple grape, and Winter clad in frost and snow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How the summer follows the spring, and the winter follows the autumn, and the years go by! And the clouds sail on through the sky, and the shadows follow each other over the grass, and the grass fadeth. ”

“ The eyes of the earth are heavy. The air is asleep. Yet the round shadow of my oak begins to shift. The cattle do not move; the pasture still sleeps under the wide, white glare.
But already the noon is passing—to-day I see the signs of coming autumn everywhere.
Of the four seasons of the year summer is the shortest, and the one we are least acquainted with. Summer is hardly a pause between spring and autumn, simply the hour of the year’s noon.
We can be glad with the spring, sad with the autumn, eager with the winter; but it is hard for us to go softly, to pause and to be still with the summer ”

“ It is the springtime of the inner world. After the spring, summer comes with its fullness and spiritual fruitage; autumn follows with its withering winds which chill the soul; the Sun seems to be going away, until at last the mantle of winter overspreads, and only faint traces of the effulgence of that divine Sun remain. ”

“ In the world of Nature the leaves bud, and the birds nest at the coming of Spring; the roses bloom in Summer—the harvest is gathered in Autumn,—the whole marvellous system moves like a grand timepiece whose hands are never awry, whose chimes never fail to ring the exact hour,—and in all the splendour of God's gifts to us there is no such thing as a broken faith! ”

“ Who has not felt, when the opening year is returning to its activity, and when sober autumn, and hoary winter, have given place to their young sister spring, who hastens to sow her seeds, and send forth the buds which are to furnish summer blossoms and fruits, and the harvest time of plenty and rejoicing—a sensation he scarce can comprehend—urging him to activity. ”

“ While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves ”

“ Spring begins the story, summer carries it forward, and autumn seems to complete it, but there is always the promise of the retelling of the story another year to keep us interested from the end of one season to the coming of another. Garden work is a sort of thousand and one days' entertainment, in which the interest is continually kept up—always something to look forward to—always something new. ”

“ A hundred times, along the mountain-side, Autumn has flung his crimson banners wide; A hundred times has kindly Winter spread His snowy mantle o’er the violet’s bed; A hundred times has Earth rejoiced to hear The Spring’s light footsteps in the forest sere, Since on yon grassy knoll the quick, sharp stroke Of the young woodman’s axe the silence broke. ”

“ AUTUMN THOUGHTS Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers, And gone the Summer's pomp and show, And Autumn, in his leafless bowers, Is waiting for the Winter's snow. ”

“ Winter is the season of the year when the ground is white with snow.
Spring is the season when the snow melts off and the birds come.
Summer is the season when all plants grow.
Fall, or autumn is the season when the leaves turn, and fall. ”

“ AUTUMN WITHIN It is autumn; not without, But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old. ”

“ Divided strictly according to this motion the year falls into four nearly equal seasons, “spring” (i.e. the springing time, when vegetation rises or shoots) , “summer” (O. Eng. sumer, cf. Dutch zomer, Ger. Sommer, probably connected with Skt. sama, year) , “autumn” (Lat. autumnus, auctumnus, from augere, to increase, the period of ripening or fruiting) and “winter” (common Teutonic, possibly a nasalized form. of root seen in “wet”) . ”