The Arrival of Autumn

Hello everyone – 

The autumn season officially arrived last Thursday, September 22^nd @ 8:04 PM (CDT), bringing with it shorter days, longer nights, cooler weather, and the transformation to fall foliage on the trees of Central Illinois. Here are some poems to welcome my favorite season of the year!

 

“Up and Down”

By George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Excerpted from At the Back of the North Wind (1871) – Chapter 37

The Sun is gone down, and the Moon’s in the sky;

But the Sun will come up, and the Moon be laid by.

The flower is asleep, but it is not dead;

When the morning shines, it will lift its head.

When winter comes, it will die – no, no;

It will only hide from the frost and the snow.

Sure is the summer, sure is the Sun;

The night and the winter are shadows that run.

 

“Welcome to the Sun”

Anonymous – Collected in Scotland (19th Century)

(Note: In the Germanic, Keltik, and Slavic languages – as well as in Japanese – the Sun is feminine and the Moon is masculine.)

Welcome to you, Sun of the seasons’ turning,

In your circuit of the high heavens;

Strong are your steps on the unfurled heights,

Glad Mother are you to the constellations.

You sink down into the ocean of want,

Without defeat, without scathe;

You rise up on the peaceful wave

Like a Queen in her maidenhood's flower.

 

“The Four Seasons of the Year: Autumn”

By Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Of Autumn months September is the prime,

Now day and night are equal in each Clime,

The twelfth of this Sol riseth in the Line,

And doth in poising Libra this month shine.

The vintage now is ripe, the grapes are pressed,

Whose lively liquor oft is cursed and blest:

For nought so good, but it may be abused,

But it’s a precious juice when well its used.

The raisins now in clusters dried be,

The Orange, Lemon dangle on the tree:

The Pomegranate, the Fig are ripe also,

And Apples now their yellow sides do show.

Of Almonds, Quinces, Wardens, and of Peach,

The season's now at hand of all and each.

Sure at this time, time first of all began,

And in this month was made apostate Man:

For then in Eden was not only seen,

Boughs full of leaves, or fruits unripe or green,

Or withered stocks, which were all dry and dead,

But trees with goodly fruits replenished;

Which shews nor Summer, Winter nor the Spring

Our Grand-Sire was of Paradise made King:

Nor could that temperate Clime such difference make,

If sited as the most Judicious take.

October is my next, we hear in this

The Northern winter-blasts begin to hiss.

In Scorpio resideth now the Sun,

And his declining heat is almost done.

The fruitless Trees all withered now do stand,

Whose sapless yellow leaves, by winds are fanned,

Which notes when youth and strength have past their prime

Decrepit age must also have its time.

The Sap doth slily creep towards the Earth

There rests, until the Sun give it a birth.

So doth old Age still tend unto his grave,

Where also he his winter time must have;

But when the Sun of righteousness draws nigh,

His dead old stock, shall mount again on high.

November is my last, for Time doth haste,

We now of winters sharpness 'gins to taste.

This month the Sun's in Sagittarius,

So far remote, his glances warm not us.

Almost at shortest is the shortened day,

The Northern pole beholdeth not one ray.

Now Greenland, Gothland, Finland, Lapland, see

No Sun, to lighten their obscurity:

Poor wretches that in total darkness lye,

With minds more dark then is the darkened Sky.

Beef, Brawn, and Pork are now in great request,

And solid meats our stomachs can digest.

This time warm clothes, full diet, and good fires,

Our pinched flesh, and hungry maws requires:

Old, cold, dry Age and Earth Autumn resembles,

And Melancholy which most of all dissembles.

I must be short, and shorts, the shortened day,

What winter hath to tell, now let him say.

 

A 19^th-century depiction of Anne Bradstreet by Edmund H. Garrett (1853-1929). Mrs. Bradstreet was the first published poet in British North America. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Happy Fall, y’all! 😊

Rob