Picking Blackberries
Myles Birket Foster
.

October
.
Autumn seems ending: there is lassitude
Wherever ripeness has not filled its brood
Of rinds and rounds: all promises are fleshed
Or now they fail. Far gone, these blackberries —
For each one that you pull, two others fall
Full of themselves, the leaves slick with their ooze:
Awaiting cold, we welcome in the frost
To cleanse these purples, this discandying,
As eagerly as we shall look to spring.
........................................ Charles Tomlinson

Autumn Maple Leaves
Izabella Godlewska de Aranda

.

Then, when the maples have burst out into color, showing like great bonfires along the hills, there is indeed a feast for the eye. A maple before your windows in October, when the sun shines upon it, will make up for a good deal of the light it has excluded; it fills the room with a soft goldenglow.

........ .. From Winter Sunshine by John Burroughs

The Harvest Moon, 'globed in mellow splendour', 1879

Helen Allingham

.

Autumn

.

A touch of cold in the Autumn night...

I walked abroad,

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge

Like a red-faaced farmer.

I did not stop to speak, but nodded,

And round about were the wistful stars

With white faces like town children.

................................... Thomas Ernest Hulme

The Potato Harvest, 1898

José Julio de Souza Pinto

.

Autumn Fires
.
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
.
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
..............Robert Louis Stevenson

Autumnal

.

PALE amber sunlight falls across
.... The reddening October trees,
.... That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
.... Seems little, dear! on days like these!
.
Let misty autumn be our part!
.... The twilight of the year is sweet:
.... Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
.... Eludes a little time's deceit.
.
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.
.
Beyond the pearled horizons lie
.... Winter and night: awaiting these
.... We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
.... Beneath the drear November trees.
............ Ernest Christopher Dowson

An October Day

Winslow Homer

.

Our readers would be happy could they follow the party along the hard, stony roads, up the winding mountain-paths, where the trees, flushing in purple, crimson and gold, seemed to shed light on their paths; where beds of fringed gentian seemed as the sunlight struck them, to glow like so many sapphires, and every leaf of every plant seemed to be passing from the green of summer into some quaint new tint of autumnal splendor. Here and there groups of pines or tall hemlocks, with their heavy background of solemn green, threw out the flamboyant tracery of the forest in startling distinctness. Here and there, as they passed a bit of low land, the swamp maples seemed really to burn like crimson flames, and the clumps of black alder, with their vivid scarlet berries, exalted the effect of color to the very highest and most daring result. No artist ever has ventured to put on canvas the exact copy of the picture that nature paints for us every year in the autumn months. There are things the Almighty Artist can do that no earthly imitator can more than hopelessly admire.
............... From Poganuc People by Harriet Beecher Stowe

October Lakeside

Robert Striffolino

.

Sonnet LXXIII
,
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
................................ William Shakespeare

October in the Highlands

Alfred de Breanski

.

Wind o' the Autumn

.
I love you, wind o' the Autumn, that came from I know not where,
To lead me out of the toiling world to a ballroom fresh and fair,
Where the poplars tall and golden and the beeches rosy and red
Are setting to woodland partners and dancing the stars to bed!
.
Oh! say, wild wind o' the Autumn, may I dance this dance with you
Decked out in your gown of moonmist and jewelled with drops of dew?
For I know no waiting lover with arms that so softly twine,
And I know no dancing partner whose step is so made for mine!
.
................................... . Will. H. Ogilvie

Autumn Reflections

Armand Tatossian

.

September slipped by into a gold and crimson graciousness of October.

_ _ _

It was accordingly arranged that they should walk, and the following afternoon they set out, going by way of Lover's Lane to the back of the Cuthbert farm, where they found a road leading into the heart of acres of glimmering beech and maple woods, which were all in a wondrous glow of flame and gold, lying in a great purple stillness and peace.

"It's as if the year were kneeling to pray in a vast cathedral full of mellow stained light, isn't it?" said Anne dreamily. "It doesn't seem right to hurry through it, does it? It seems irreverent, like running in a church."
............. From Anne Of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery

One Day of Autumn
.
One day of autumn
sun had uncongealed
the frost that clung
wherever shadows spread
their arctic greys among
October grass: mid-
field an oak still
held its foliage intact
but then began
releasing leaf by leaf
full half,
till like a startled
flock they scattered
on the wind: and one
more venturesome than all
the others shone far out
a moment in mid-air,
before it glittered off
and sheered into the dip
a stream ran through
to disappear with it.
................... Charles Tomlinson
......................... The Shaft (1978).

Autumn Landscape
Arthur Bishop Jeffreys
.

The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past-there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!

..................................... .Percy Bysshe Shelley

............................... ... Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Windy Autumn Day, 1903
Allen Butler Talcott

.

I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
.
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
.
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
.
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

............................. from Ode to the West Wind
...................................... by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sunrise and Autumn Blueberries, Maine
Christopher Burkett

.

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,
This autumn morning!
................................................ R. Browning

Chill October

John Everett Millais

.

............................ Days decrese,
And autumn grows, autumn in everything
.................................................... Robert Browning

October

George Innes

.

Summers pleasures they are gone like to visions every one
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on
I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and for ever far away.
........................................................... John Clare
....................................................... Remembrance

Martha: "What is autumn?"
Jan: "A second spring, where every leaf is a flower."
............................................................ Albert Camus
........................................... (Le Malentendu) (1944)

October

William Hamilton

.

Apple Harvest
.
Our Apple harvest has been over for nearly a fortnight; but how pleasant the orchard was while it lasted, and how pleasant the seat in the corner by the Limes, whence we see the distant spire on the green wooded slopes. The grey, gnarled old Apple-trees have, for most part, done well. The Ribstone Pippins are especially fine, and so is an apple, which we believe to be the King of the sorts — probably local varieties, — which no pomologist, however able and obliging, would undertake to name. One of the prettiest of Apples — and one of the best, too — is the Delaware. It has an orange-red colour, and reminds one almost of an Orange as it hangs upon the tree. It has a crisp, delicious flavour, but requires to be eaten as soon as ripe, for otherwise it soon gets mealy. Indeed all eating apples, with but few exceptions, are best when freshly gathered, or better still, when, on some clear soft day, they have just fallen on the grass, and lie there, warmed by the rays of the autumn sun.
.................. From A Year in a Lancashire Garden by Henry A. Bright, 1891

Autumn Leaves

Sir John Everett Millais

.

Gathering Leaves
.
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
.
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?
.......................... Robert Frost

A Garden in October

Helen Allingham

.

A Dream of Winter
.
These flowers survive their lover bees
Whose deep bass voices filled the air;
The cuckoo and the nightingale
Have come and gone, we know not where.
.
Now, in this green and silent world,
In Autumn, full of smiling light,
I hear a bird that, suddenly,
Startles my hearing and my sight.
.
It is the Robin, singing of
A silver world of snow and frost;
Where all is cold and white-except
The fire that's on his own warm breast.
........................................... W. H. Davies

October Trees
.
How innocent were these
Trees, that in mist-green May,
Blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious colour clad
Confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad.
.
Trees who unwhispering stand
Umber and bronze and gold,
Pavilioning the land
For one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, beech, and lime,
I am merged in you, who tell
Once more in tones of time
Your foliaged farewell.

.......... Siegfried Sassoon, The Tasking (1954)

Landscape at Hancock, New Hampshire, October 1923

Lilla Cabot Perry

.

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather.
......................... Helen Hunt Jackson

Donati's Comet, 1858

William Turner

A man in a barrel crossing the Niagara Falls, illustration from 'Le Petit Journal', 9th October 1910

October, sowing, ploughing and threshing,

Libra, illustration from the

'Almanach des Bergers', 1491

.

THE PLOUGH
A landscape in Berkshire
.
Above yon sombre swell of land
Thou see'st the dawn's grave orange hue,
With one pale streak like yellow sand,
And over that a vein of blue.
.
The air is cold above the woods;
All silent is the earth and sky,
Except with his own lonely moods
The blackbird holds a colloquy.
.
Over the broad hill creeps a beam,
Like hope that gilds a good man's brow;
And now ascends the nostril-stream
Of stalwart horses come to plough.
.
Ye rigid Ploughmen, bear in mind
Your labour is for future hours:
Advance—spare not—nor look behind—
Plough deep and straight with all your powers!

.

Richard Henry Horne

1803-1884

October
Karoly Ferenczy

.

This is not the kind of October we have here.
It's rather wet and gray for the moment, even if it is rather mild (+11° today).

Back on-line

Little did I know, when the computer started to act up, that it would take over two months before I'd be back on-line.
The computer didn't suffer any serious malady, it needed a spare part that had to be ordered from — well, actually I don't know from where — from somewhere. And that took time.
Much more serious was the situation when my mother suffered a cardiac infarction. But all went well and she could go home after five days at the hospital.

I dare not promise to write very often, life has a tendency to get complicated in between, but I'll try to post a line or two every now and then.