Autumn

"It was autumn, and he always liked autumn. Something about early autumn, when the leaves began to flee before a northern breeze and the days shortened, gave an extra edge to existence."

"falling leaves hide the path so quietly"

"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; And only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

"What does winter or autumn or spring or summer know of memory. They know nothing of memory. They know that seasons pass and return. They know that they are seasons. That they are time. And they know how to affirm themselves. And they know how to impose themselves. And they know how to maintain themselves. What does autumn know of summer. What sorrows do seasons have. None hate. None love. They just pass."

"If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before."

"The mellow autumn came, and with it came The promised party, to enjoy its sweets. The corn is cut, the manor full of game; The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats In russet jacket;—lynx-like is his aim; Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats. Ah, nutbrown partridges! Ah, brilliant pheasants! And ah, ye poachers!—'Tis no sport for peasants."

"Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower."

"October gave a party; The leaves by hundreds came - The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples, And leaves of every name. The Sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand, Miss Weather led the dancing, Professor Wind the band."

"Friends are like the autumn, every year they leaving."

"To me there is no season so lovely as the autumn. There is a gayety 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. There is an activity about it, from which the wearied spirits shrink; and a joyousness, which but makes you turn more sadly upon yourself; but about autumn there is a tender melancholy inexpressibly soothing ; decay is around, but such is in your own heart. There is a languor in the air which encourages your own, and the poetry of memory is in every drooping flower and falling leaf. The very magnificence of its Assyrian array is touched with the light of imagination : even while you watch it, it passes away as your brightest hopes have done before."

"Then came the Autumn, all in yellow clad, As though he joyed in his plenteous store, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad That he had banished hunger, which before Had by the belly oft him pinched sore; Upon his head a wreath, that was enrolled With ears of corn of every sort, he bore, And in his hand a sickle he did hold, To reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."

"For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad."

"Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf, While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain, Comes jovial on."

"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."

"Autumn is the season of man, because it is like us: a death that is not without fruit."

"Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods, And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt, And night by night the monitory blast Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes, Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods Than any joy indulgent Summer dealt."

"O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest 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."

"Autumn wins you best by this, its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay."

"Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in their freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen."

"The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear."

"All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding corn."

"Yellow, mellow, ripened days, Sheltered in a golden coating; O'er the dreamy, listless haze, White and dainty cloudlets floating; Winking at the blushing trees, And the sombre, furrowed fallow; Smiling at the airy ease, Of the southward flying swallow. Sweet and smiling are thy ways, Beauteous, golden Autumn days."

"A breath, whence no man knows, Swaying the grating weeds, it blows; It comes, it grieves, it goes. Once it rocked the summer rose."

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

"The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying;— Old age, begin sighing!"

"The year's in the wane; There is nothing adorning; The night has no eve, And the day has no morning; Cold winter gives warning!"

"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-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core."

"Third act of the eternal play! In poster-like emblazonries "Autumn once more begins today"— 'Tis written all across the trees In yellow letters like Chinese."

"It was Autumn, and incessant Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, And, like living coals, the apples Burned among the withering leaves."

"What visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair!"

"Every season hath its pleasures; Spring may boast her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures Brighten Autumn's sob'rer time."

"Autumn Into earth's lap does throw Brown apples gay in a game of play, As the equinoctials blow."

"Sorrow and the scarlet leaf, Sad thoughts and sunny weather; Ah me! this glory and this grief Agree not well together!"

"Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?"

"Thus sung the shepherds till th' approach of night, The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, And the low sun had lengthened every shade."

"O, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock."

"This sunlight shames November where he grieves In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun The day, though bough with bough be overrun. But with a blessing every glade receives High salutation."

"The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying; And the year On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre."

"Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain, Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune That death smote silent when he smote again."

"Autumn has come; Storming now heaveth the deep sea with foam, Yet would I gratefully lie there, Willingly die there."

"How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden? Umbered juices, And pulpèd oozes Pappy out of the cherry-bruises, Froth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden. With hair that musters In globèd clusters, In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes, Round thy brow and thine ears o'ershaden; With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies, Like velvet pansies Where through escapes The splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies; With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapes Of the feet whereunto it falleth down, Thy naked feet unsandalled; With robe gold-tawny that does not veil Feet where the red Is meshed in the brown, Like a rubied sun in a Venice-sail."

"We lack but open eye and ear To find the Orient's marvels here; The still small voice in autumn's hush, Yon maple wood the burning bush."