“such pleasant and sunny spots”

9 Comments

1. gloriainexcelsis says:

   1 October 2009 at 10:18 AM

   MMM! First night for a warm, comforting quilt. First morning with a chill in the air. Bright blue sky over the Sierra foothills. October 1st.
   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
2. Denis Crnkovic says:

   1 October 2009 at 10:52 AM

   October, that begins with the seasons of angels and ends with the season of the dead, has been made much of by the poets’ hand:

   Just before the death of flowers,
   And before they are buried in snow,
   There comes a festival season
   When nature is all aglow.

   – Anonymous

   ***
   In the great silence of my favorite month,
   October (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
   A clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
   I celebrated the standstill of time.

   The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
   At the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
   But I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.

   Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
   It was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.

   I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
   A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
   And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living.

   – Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow’s Eve

   – Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

   ***
   Across the land a faint blue veil of mist
   Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
   Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
   The drooping cherry orchards of October
   Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
   Russet and orange: all things now decay;
   Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
   And sad the robins pipe at set of day.

   – Siegfried Sassons, October

   ***
   And many, many more…
3. Cathy_of_Alex says:

   1 October 2009 at 11:52 AM

   It’s all Longfellow here…

   The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
   It rains,and the wind is never weary;
   The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
   But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
   And the day is dark and dreary.

   My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
   It rains,and the wind is never weary;
   My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
   But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
   And the days are dark and dreary.

   Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
   Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
   Thy fate is the common fate of all,
   Into each life some rain must fall,
   Some days must be dark and dreary
4. Mark Scott Abeln says:

   1 October 2009 at 12:04 PM

   In this glad season, while his sweetest beams
   The sun sheds equal o’er the meekened day ;
   O, lose me in the green delightful walks
   Of Dodington, thy seat serene and plain ;
   Where simple Nature reigns ; and every view,
   Diffusive, spreads the pure Dorsetian downs,
   In boundless prospect. yonder shagged with wood,
   Here rich with harvest, and there white with flocks
   Meanwhile the grandeur of thy lofty dome,
   Far splendid, seizes on the ravished eye.

   – James Thompson, Autumn
5. Supertradmom says:

   1 October 2009 at 12:39 PM

   Keats:My favorite–

   Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
   Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
   To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
   To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
   And still more, later flowers for the bees,
   Until they think warm days will never cease,
   For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

   2.

   Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
   Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
   Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
   Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
   Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
   And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
   Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

   3.

   Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
   While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
   Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
   Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
   And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
   And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
6. GOR says:

   1 October 2009 at 2:36 PM

   And less poetically, stacking the firewood in the garage is a sure sign that the “pleasant and sunny spots” will be few and far between anon!
7. Traductora says:

   1 October 2009 at 2:37 PM

   I have spent many Octobers in many different places, and it’s almost inevitably a pretty month, regardless of latitude.
8. Fr. John Mary says:

   1 October 2009 at 6:29 PM

   Wish I could provide a poetic comment; I just want to thank God for the beautiful weather these past days: clear blue skies, beautiful autumn colors, cool, fresh air…just hope the rain and wind these next days in West Central Wisconsin won’t ruin the leaves just yet.
9. Robert_H says:

   1 October 2009 at 10:03 PM

   Fr. Z,

   Thanks so much for including your poetry and “good news wanted” posts. They are one of my most favorite things about WDTPRS. I often email the poems to my family.

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