Poetry and Wit of the Season: October

Picture by Carl Larsson

Page of quotes, wit, and wisdom for October

October brings bright leaf color, orange pumpkins, and the best time for apple picking.

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

At the end of the swamp, a narrow road turns right to the house. The giant sugar maples that surround it are spreading a deep green canopy above the slant roof and I look up at them and tell them that the first swamp maple is turning. Whether they believe me or not, I do not know. They are inscrutable. They are also very independent. sometimes the biggest one at the corner of the yard will be summer green while the one back where the barn burned is flaming with glory. Why?

Weather conditions are the same for all of them, one is no more sheltered than another, and they are the same age, judging by their size. I like to think one tree decides to keep summer a bit longer and one impetuously responds to the tide of incoming autumn. Trees are not remotely like people, but I reflect that I know some people who have never let summer go and others who begin to think winter thoughts in July. Perhaps it is all temperament.
-Gladys Tabor

Collectors thrill to tiny silver leaves or bronze ones, but little can excite the acquisition frenzy that leaves do with many colors at once. — Ken Druse

When on the breath of Autumn’s breeze,
From pastures day and brown,
Goes floating, like an idle thought,
The fair, white thistle-down;
O, then what joy to walk at will,
Upon the golden harvest-hill!
- Mary Howitt, Corn-Fields

The Autumn wood the aster knows,
The empty nest, the wind that grieves,
The sunlight breaking thro’ the shade,
The squirrel chattering overhead,
The timid rabbits lighter tread
Among the rustling leaves.
- Dora Read Goodale, Asters

Autumn’s Tapestry

Autumn patiently counted the days
As she fashioned her threads of gold,
She tirelessly spun her palette of silk
And waited for days to grow cold.

She lined up her spools of tangerine,
Kept an eye on the colour of leaves.
Then early one night, when Frost kissed the Wind,
She sat at her loom to weave.

While warp and woof were intertwined,
She hummed a contented tune;
Before long she finished her tapestry,
Inspected by light of the Moon.

The Stars all blinked their twinkling praise–
Autumn had done just right.
Her tapestry of crimson and gold
Would be wrapped round the Forest that night.

She winked at the Moon as she went to her rest,
She’d had an exhausting night;
The thread would be passed to Winter now,
Who would quilt a fine blanket of white.
-Nancy Bond

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old–
October–November–
How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget–
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember
When the year grows old –
October — November –
How she disliked the cold!

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.
~George Cooper, “October’s Party”