Autumn

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Autumn loves these especially, and happy, too, are they who know the charm of the breezy hills! The hills where autumn pours her ruddy sunshine upon lordly pines—rather call them palms!—shooting their slender swaying trunks into the golden sea of morning, and, far up above, waving their emerald plumes in the laughing wind;—where the sward is fresh and dewy in the shivering delicious hunter's morning!—where the arrow-wood and dogwood cluster crimson berries, and the maple, alder tree and tulip, burn away—setting the dewy copse on fire with splendor! ”

“ Spring and its wistful ecstasy of saplings, and its yearning, wild, wind-loosened heart; gleam and song, blossom and cloud, and the swift white rain; each upturned leaf so little and so glad to flutter; each wood and field so full of peeping things! Summer! Ah! Summer, when on the solemn old trees the long days shone and lingered, and the glory of the meadows and the murmur of life and the scent of flowers bewildered tranquillity, till surcharge of warmth and beauty brooded into dark passion, and broke! And Autumn, in mellow haze down on the fields and woods ”

“ 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. ”

“ Autumn's near.
Yes, with her golden days—
Days
When hope and toil
Are at peace and rest—
Autumn is near, and the tired year 'mid praise
Lies down with leaf and blossom on his breast—
Autumn's near.
[Pg 149]
FULFILMENT
A-bask in the mellow beauty of the ripening sun,
Sad with the lingering sense of summer's purpose done,
The shorn and searing fields stretch from me one by one
Along the creek.
The corn-stalks drop their shadows down the fallow hill;
Wearing autumnal warmth the farm sleeps by the mill,
Around each heavy eave low smoke hangs blue and still—
Life's flow is weak. ”

“ Yet ah! the tints of Autumn bring,
A fading charm, a soft farewell.
Dear Autumn! as thy sober hues
Adorn the scene with shadowy grace;
A mellow beauty they diffuse,
Which pensive pleasure loves to trace. ”

“ The opportunity has always been mine of noting the changing of the seasons—the virgin green and promise of spring, the glory and fullness of summer, the russet and gold of autumn, the sleep and decay of winter—and each, to him who can see aright, has a beauty and significance of its own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We behold the green woods becoming one mass of rich and varied coloring. It would seem as though Autumn, in honor of this high holiday, had collected together all the past glories of the year, adding them to her own; she borrows the gay colors that have been lying during the summer months among the flowers, in the fruits, upon the plumage of the bird, on the wings of the butterfly, and working them together in broad and glowing masses, she throws them over the forest to grace her triumph. ”

“ Experience has taught us that the many-hued glory of autumn is short-lived; the faintest breeze brings the leaves fluttering to the ground in golden showers. Soon the few that remain will patter gently down to earth, their mother. ”

“ A breeze cannot stir, without thrilling me with the breath of autumn, and I behold its pensive glory in the far, golden gleams among the long shadows of the trees. The flowers, even the brightest of them,—the golden-rod and the gorgeous cardinals,—the most glorious flowers of the year,—have this gentle sadness amid their pomp. Pensive autumn is expressed in the glow of every one of them. ”

“ Summer decks the ripening plain,
Autumn sings amid his cares,
Guiding home the loaded wain.
Winter with his snowy vest,
Revels in their blended spoil,
Lulls the wearied earth to rest,
Braces man for future toil. ”

“ For autumn is Nature’s chief executioner; and its symbol is darkness. It has the temper of steel; and its symbol is a sharp sword. It is the avenging angel, riding upon an atmosphere of death. As spring is the epoch of growth, so autumn is the epoch of maturity:―
Its strains decay,
And melt away.
In a dying, dying fall. [3]
And sad is the hour when maturity is passed; for that which passes its prime must die.
“Still what is this to plants and trees, which fade away in their due season?...But stay: there is man, man the divinest of all things. ”

“ The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees. ”

“ In autumn, when the harvest-hymn of the day-time has ceased, at early nightfall, the green nocturnal grasshoppers commence their autumnal dirge, and fill the mind with a keen sense of the rapid passing of time. ”

“ 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? ”

“ On invisible feet slips the stately autumn into summer’s place. Something has come to the air, a hint of change, some glory which cannot be defined into the sky and the leaves. Perhaps it has rained, and the languid, burning heat of the day before has now a sparkle in it; as hot, it may be, but alive, vivid. ”

“ The greenness of the spring, and all its flowers;
The ruddiness of summer and its fruits;
And cool and sleeping streams, and shading bowers
The sombre brown of autumn, that best suits
His leisure hours, whose melancholy mind
Is calm’d with list’ning to the moaning wind,
And watching sick leaves take their silent way,
On viewless wings, to death and to decay. ”

“ The boy said: “The moon and stars are shining; the Milky Way glitters in the sky. Nowhere is there any noise of men. The noise must be in the trees.”
“I-hsi! alas!” I said, “this must be the sound of Autumn. Oh, why has Autumn come? For as to Autumn’s form, her colours are mournful and pale. Mists scatter and clouds withdraw. Her aspect is clean and bright. The sky is high and the sunlight clear as crystal. Her breath is shivering and raw, pricking men’s skin and bones; her thoughts are desolate, bringing emptiness and silence to the rivers and hills. ”

“ Like a thirsty child, you stray in thought to that fountain of cheer, and live again—your vanity crushed, your wild hope broken—in the warm and natural affections of the boyish home.
Clouds weave the Summer into the season of Autumn; and Youth rises from dashed hopes into the stature of a Man.
AUTUMN; OR, THE DREAMS OF MANHOOD. DREAMS OF MANHOOD. Autumn.
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. ”

“ BEFORE THE SNOW. Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the windy rain. A thousand leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air,
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.
Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.
Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!
Yea, autumn's gone! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dews of spring fall, summer's vapours fade away, and it is the pure atmosphere of autumn which clearly reveals the distant landscape, and then finally earthly existence is swallowed in the night of winter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was at that season of the year, when the first leaves of summer begin to leave the branches from which they sprang, like the bright and tender hopes of early years, that fade and fall before the autumn of life has fully commenced. ”

“ And wayfarers will go their way
Nor stop to meditate and pray.
The spring will nest in all the trees
Unblighted by the memories
Of autumn and the god of pain.
The leaves will whisper in the sun,
Life will crown death with snowy flowers,
Long hence...but now the autumn lowers,
The sky breaks into gusts of rain,
Turn thee to sleep, the day is nearly done.
Forest of Fontainebleau, 1918
XIII The boy is late tonight binding his sheaves,
The twilight of these autumn eyes
Falls early now and chill. ”

“ WHEN AUTUMN COMES.
When Spring first breathes on the russet hill,
In her own faint, lovely fashion,
One's pulses stir with a sudden thrill;
But when Autumn comes the heart stands still.
Moved with a deeper passion. ”

“ When skies at noon are burnished blue, And winds at evening keen; When tangled, tardy-blooming things From wild waste places peer, And drooping golden grain-heads tell That harvest-time is near. Though Autumn tints amid the green Are gleaming, here and there, And spicy Autumn odors float Like incense on the air, And sounds we mark as Autumn's own Her nearing steps betray, In gracious mood she seems to stand And bid the Summer stay. Though 'neath the trees, with fallen leaves The sward be lightly strown, And nests deserted tell the tale Of summer bird-folk flown ”

“ Afterward comes tumultuous autumn when unwholesome and sterile winds blow; it is the season of sickness, when all things are withered, and the balmy air is vitiated. The breezes of spring are changed to autumn winds; the fertile green trees have become withered and bare; flowers and fragrant herbs fade away; the beautiful garden becomes a dustheap. ”

“ For I had learned from many an autumn
The way a leaf can drift and go,
Lightly, lightly, almost gay
Taking the unreturning way
To mix with winter and the snow.
81
Winter
I shall have winter now and lessening days,
Lit by a smoky sun with slanting rays,
And after falling leaves, the first determined frost.
The colors of the world will all be lost. ”

“ From Winter’s silence, breathing, sighing, sleeping, creeping on to Spring with sap, with shoot, with bud and flower, hour on hour playing, plying gentleness and power for Summer’s rest to temper strength for birth in Autumn, with crowning brilliancy and rich rewards untaxed to bird, to beast, to insect and to man, gift on gift for full contentment, sustenance and labor. ”

“ When autumn comes, we will keep pace with the sun, to lands where the tall palms rise, where gorgeous flowers festoon the rocks, and the face of the deep blue sea lies smiling in the sun. And I will always tell you stories. ”