request: autumn poems

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

I know it's not the season, but I would really like to read some autumn-related poems, hopefully in a similar vein as this:

"Autumn Day"
Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander along the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

- translated by Stephen Mitchell

Comments

[twirls.livejournal.com]

W. S. Merwin
The Love for October
A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become lighter there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering rose hips
in the sun

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful, thank you.

[queen-isa.livejournal.com]

It IS Autumn in Australia! :D

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

Oh, you're quite right! I'm so jealous of you guys now...

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

(And New Zealand!)

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Trying to find my fave autumn poem....this comm tends to be very specific to holidays and seasons and events - you will find a wealth of autumn poems in the archives for the months of October! Happy hunting!

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I actually went through the archive a little bit, specifically checking the entries in autumn months and didn't really find what I was looking for. Then again, I guess the poem I need is kind of too specific with very specific kind of atmosphere and feelings it evokes. Maybe I just need to go further back...

Nevertheless, thank you!

[pachamama.livejournal.com]

Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
with your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
it will come to such sights colder
by and by, nor spare a sigh
though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
what heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful, thank you.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Empty Pages – Cyril Wong

But we are not yet there. There,
where we cling to our names
for old times' sake, and clouds
would read like empty pages
at last. But we are not yet there.

ETA: I feel like this poem captures the transition to winter -'it's not quite here yet, but it's looming on the horizon', sort of a thing. I'm not sure if that's what you were looking for, sorry.

---

Autumn Movement - Carl Sandburg

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
and the old things go, not one lasts.

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

Thank you for these, I like both of them. And yes, the dreading 'not yet' feeling in the first poem is exactly what I was looking for.

[bright-ephemera.livejournal.com]

For late autumn, I give you My November Guest by Robert Frost:

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you.

[orange-fell.livejournal.com]

Here's an autumn poem from Australia! Hobart is in Tasmania.


Autumn in Hobart

James McAuley

Snow-cloud, a rainbow, blue sky, rain,
All at one time; the white streets shine
In pale gold sunlight, a cold breeze ruffles
The reds and yellows of wet trees.
The yellow-throated honeyeater knows
How to like this place: he's active, greedy,
And defines his world with music.

[catpaws.livejournal.com]

It's a very interesting take on the season. Thank you!