October's Bright Blue Weather!

Dear Members, Alumni, and Friends of the JSMT:

Have you ever sat down to write a research paper and found that you had too much material to fit within the assigned page limit? That’s how I feel about the month of October with regard to Quotemail: I have too much good material on hand to let it go to waste! So from now through Halloween, Quotemail will be distributed on a weekly basis! J

This week, I’d like to share with you some of my favorite autumn-themed poems, all of which I can still remember reading (in my Open Court textbooks – classics!) during the enchanted autumn days of my elementary school years back in the 1970s. It was downright amazing to watch all the changes in Nature during recess from one week to the next!

“October's Bright Blue Weather”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October’s bright blue weather!

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And Golden-Rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant.

When Gentians roll their fringes tight

To save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning.

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining.

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing.

When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting.

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,

October’s bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together;

Love loveth best of all the year

October’s bright blue weather!

“A Calendar of Sonnets: October”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

The month of carnival of all the year,

When Nature lets the wild earth go its way,

And spend whole seasons on a single day.

The spring-time holds her white and purple dear;

October, lavish, flaunts them far and near;

The summer charily her reds doth lay

Like jewels on her costliest array;

October, scornful, burns them on a bier.

The winter hoards his pearls of frost in sign

Of kingdom: whiter pearls than winter knew,

Or empress wore, in Egypt's ancient line,

October, feasting 'neath her dome of blue,

Drinks at a single draught, slow filtered through

Sunshiny air, as in a tingling wine!

“Autumn” (1845)

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,

With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,

Brighter than brightest silks of Samarkand,

And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!

Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne,

Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand

Outstretched with benedictions o’er the land,

Blessing the farms through all thy vast domain!

Thy shield is the red Harvest Moon, suspended

So long beneath the heaven’s o’er-hanging eaves;

Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended;

Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves;

And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,

Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves!

Next Friday: “October Tales – Part 1 of 2” will include a condensed version of the earliest known epic poem in Old English! J

Until then –

Rob

“Sight doesn’t define vision. Eyes of the heart will see far beyond any physical force.” – A.N.A., My Youngest Cousin :)

Read my favorite motivational poem @ http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Invictus.