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September Poems & Sayings .

Sep 19, 2017


Summer is fast coming to a close, harvest times are here;  we see orchards and fields full of ripeness as well as the turning of the wheel of the year.  Here from many sources are poems and sayings about September...
 
"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
-   John Updike, September
 
"But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness.  The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head ... The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on."
-  Robert Finch
 
 "'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone."
-   Thomas Moore, The Last Rose of Summer, 1830
 
 Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
-  William Wordsworth, September
 
  "Equal dark, equal light
Flow in Circle, deep insight
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of energy!
So it flows, out it goes
Three-fold back it shall be
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of energy!"
-   Night An'Fey, Transformation of Energy
 
 
"Smoke hangs like haze over harvested fields,
The gold of stubble, the brown of turned earth
And you walk under the red light of fall
The scent of fallen apples, the dust of threshed grain
The sharp, gentle chill of fall.
Here as we move into the shadows of autumn
The night that brings the morning of spring
Come to us, Lord of Harvest
Teach us to be thankful for the gifts you bring us ..."
-  Autumn Equinox Ritual
 
"Alas, that my heart is a lute,
Whereon you have learned to play!
For a many years it was mute,
Until one summer's day
You took it, and touched it, and made it thrill,
And it thrills and throbs, and quivers still!"
-   Anne Barnard, My Heart is a Lute, 1815
 
"Sorrow and scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny weather.
Ah me, this glory and this grief
Agree not well together!"
-   Thomas Parsons, 1880, A Song For September
 
 "Lord, it is time. The summer was very big. Lay thy shadow on the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go loose. Command the last fruits that they shall be full; give them another two more southerly days, press them on to fulfillment and drive the last sweetness into the heavenly wine."
-     Rainer Maria Rilke
 
 
"Blessed be the Lord for the beauty of summer and spring, for the air, the water, the verdure, and the song of birds."  
-   Carl von Linnaeus
 
"Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh so mellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain so yellow
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a young and a callow fellow
Try to remember and if you remember
Then follow--follow, oh-oh." 
-  Try to Remember, Lyrics by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt
 
 "Shine on, shine on harvest moon
Up in the sky,
I ain't had no lovin'
Since January, February, June or July
Sno Time ain't no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon,
So shine one, shine on harvest noon
For me and my gal."
-  By Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, 1903
 
 
"September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples,
and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn."
-   Robert Lowell
 
 
"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always
been the two most beautiful words in the English language."
-  Henry James
 
"In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.
And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb  colour effects as from August to November."
-   Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden, 1905
 
 
"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer."
-   Helen Hunt Jackson, September, 1830-1885
 
 
"Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the
Stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what
lovely behavior
Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, willful-waiver
Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?"
-   Gerard Manly Hopkins, Hurrahing in Harvest, 1918
 
 "The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf
shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many."
-   Oliver Wendell Holmes
 
 
"Crown'd with the sickle, and the sheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on."
-   James Thomson, Autumn, 1730
 
 
School,
Effort, and
Play.
Trying your best
Each hour of the day,
Making new friends,
Being good as you can
Exciting discoveries,
Reading books with a friend."
-  Boni Fulgham
 
 
"Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers."
-  Carl Sandburg, Under the Harvest Moon
 
 "September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret."
-   Alexander Theroux, 1981
 
 
"Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.
 
No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness."
-   Emily Dickinson
 
"the air is different today
the wind sings with a new tone
sighing of changes
coming
the harvest gathered
a flower, a nut
some mead, and bread
a candle and a prayer
returning the fruits
in thanksgiving
to the grove
and receiving
it's blessing
again"
-   Rhawk, Alban Elfed
 
 
"Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit,
and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day."
-   John Donne, 1620
 
 
"Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these
Of mid September; through the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune
Than ever in the summer; from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas."
-  Edward Dowden, In September
 
 
" 'I grow old, I grow old,' the garden says.  It is nearly October.  The bean leaves grow paler, now lime, no yellow, no leprous, dissolving before my eyes.  The pods curl and do not grow, turn limp and blacken.  The potato vines wither and the tubers huddle underground in their rough weather-proof jackets, waiting to be dug.  The last tomatoes ripen and split on the vine; it takes days for them to turn fully now, and a few of the green ones are beginning to fall off."
-   Robert Finch
 
 
"The Druids call this celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair, and honor the Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees.  Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time....  Mabon is considered a time of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World...."
-   Mabon by Akasha
 
 
"For summer there, bear in mind, is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk of leaving when September rises to go."
-   George Washington Cable
 
 
"The goldenrod is yellow
The corn is turning brown
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down."
-  Childrens song
 
 
"Indian summer—
the old cat shares
her corner of the deck"
-   James Chessing 
 
 
"In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie—
A dignified and commodiois sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire
Leaping through the flames, or joined in circles,
Rustically solemn or in rustic laughter
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth
Mirth of those long since under earth
Nourishing the corn. Keeping time,
Keeping the rhythm in their dancing
As in their living in the living seasons
The time of the seasons and the constellations
The time of milking and the time of harvest
The time of the coupling of man and woman
And that of beasts. Feet rising and falling.
Eating and drinking. Dung and death.
 
Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning."
-   T. S. Eliot,  Four Quartets, East Coker No. 2, 1, 1940
 
"There comes a time when autumn asks,
"What have you been doing all summer?"
 
"Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away
Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing.
As we danced in the night,
Remember how the stars stole the night away."
-   September, Lyrics by Maurice White, Charles Stemney and Verdine White
 
 "All your renown is like the summer flower that blooms and dies; because the sunny glow which brings it forth, soon slays with parching power."
-   Dante Alighieri
 
 "I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air."
-  Theodore Roethke, The Far Field
 
 "I don't wanna say goodbye for the summer
Knowing the love we'll miss
Oh let us make a pledge to meet in September
And seal it with a kiss
Guess it's gonna be a cold lonely summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll send you all my love every day in a letter
Sealed with a kiss."
-  Bobby Vinton
 
 
"The morrow was a bright September morn;
The earth was beautiful as if newborn;
There was nameless splendor everywhere,
That wild exhilaration in the air,
Which makes the passers in the city street
Congratulate each other as they meet."
-   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 
 
"Have a good time, but remember,
There is dander in the summer moon above.
Will I see you in September
Or loose you to a summer love."
-   S. Wayne and S. Edwards, 1959 song lyrics
 
"What a pity flowers can utter no sound!—A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle ...  oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!"
-   Henry Ward Beecher
 
 
"September morn
Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel this way."
-   Neil Diamond and Gilbert Becaud
 
 
"Happy we who can bask in this warm September sun, which illumines all creatures, as well when they rest as when they toil, not without a feeling of gratitude; whose life is as blameless, how blameworthy soever it may be, on the Lord’s Mona-day as on his Suna-day."
-   Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862
 
 
"All good things vanish in less than a day,
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay
Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,
The earth is hell when you leav'st to appear."
-   Thomas Nash, Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600
 
 
"The tale of Mabon of Modron, the Welsh God, (the "great son of the great mother"), also known as the Son of Light, the Young Son, or Divine Youth, is celebrated.  The Equinox is also the birth of Mabon, from his mother Modron, the Guardian of the Outerworld, the Healer, the Protector, the Earth. Mabon was taken after he is a mere three nights old (some variations of the legend say he is taken after three years).  Through the wisdom of the living animals -- the Stag, Blackbird, Owl, Eagle and Salmon -- Mabon is freed from his mysterious captivity.  All the while Mabon had rested within his mother's womb; a place of nurturing and challenge.  With strength and lessons gained within the magickal Outerworld (Modron's womb), Mabon is soon reborn as his mother's Champion, the Son of Light, wielding the strength and wisdom acquired during his captivity."
-  Joyous Mabon
 
"Harvest home, harvest home!
We've plowed, we've sowed
We've reaped, we've mowed
And brought safe home
Every load."
-   Harvest Home Song 
 
 
"The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.
 
The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.
 
The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,
 
From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes' sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.
 
 By all these lovely tokens
 September days are here,
 With summer's best of weather,
 And autumn's best of cheer.
 
 But none of all this beauty
 Which floods the earth and air
 Is unto me the secret
 Which makes September fair.
 
T'is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget."
-  Helen Hunt Jackson, September  
 
 "The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory."
-   Truman Capote
 
"Tang of fruitage in the air;
Red boughs bursting everywhere;
Shimmering of seeded grass;
Hooded gentians all a'mass.
Warmth of earth, and cloudless wind
Tearing off the husky rind,
Blowing feathered seeds to fall
By the sun-baked, sheltering wall.
Beech trees in a golden haze;
Hardy sumachs all ablaze,
Glowing through the silver birches.
How that pine tree shouts and lurches!
From the sunny door-jamb high,
Swings the shell of a butterfly.
Scrape of insect violins
Through the stubble shrilly dins.
Every blade's a minaret
Where a small muezzin's set,
Loudly calling us to pray
At the miracle of day.
Then the purple-lidded night
Westering comes, her footsteps light
Guided by the radiant boon
Of a sickle-shaped new moon."
-   Amy Lowell, Late September
 
 
"The last of Summer is Delight --
Deterred by Retrospect.
'Tis Ecstasy's revealed Review --
Enchantment's Syndicate.
 
To meet it -- nameless as it is --
Without celestial Mail --
Audacious as without a Knock
To walk within the Veil."
-   Emily Dickinson, The Last of Summer is Delight
 
 "When the sun shouts and people abound
One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze
And the iron age; iron the unstable metal;
Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up cities
Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster.
Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them,
Then nothing will remain of the iron age
And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem
Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass
In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain..."
-   Robinson Jeffers, A Summer Holiday
 
"Lips half-willing in a doorway.
Lips half-singing at a window.
Eyes half-dreaming in the walls.
Feet half-dancing in a kitchen.
Even the clocks half-yawn the hours
And the farmers make half-answers."
-   Carl Sandburg, Village in Late September
 
"Today I walked on the lion-coloured hills
with only cypresses for company, 
until the sunset caught me, turned the brush
to copper
set the clouds 
to one great roof of flame 
above the earth,
so that I walk through fire, beneath fire,
and all in beauty. 
Being alone
I could not be alone, but felt
(closer than flesh) the presence of those
who once had burned in such transfigurations.
My happiness ran through the centuries
in one continual brightness.  Looking down,
I saw the earth beneath me like a rose
petaled with mountains,
fragrant with deep peace."
-  Elizabeth Coatsworth, On the Hills, 1924 
 
 
"I trust in Nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility.  Spring shall plant and Autumn garner to the ends of time."
-   Robert Browning
 
"The winter is forbidden till December
And exits March the Second, on the dot.
By order, summer lingers through September,
In Camelot.
Camelot, Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot, Camelot,
That's how conditions are."
- Camelot, Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner 
 
"It is a sad moment when the first phlox appears.  It is the amber light indicating the end of the great burst of
early summer and suggesting that we must now start looking forward to autumn.  Not that I have any objection
to autumn as a season, full of its own beauty; but I just cannot bear to see another summer go, and I recoil
from what the first hint of autumn means."
-   Vita Sackville-West
 
"The birds laugh loud and long together
When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
Might each gaze into the other's face."
-  Ella Wheeler Wilcox, The End of Summer
 
 "To many ancient people, the waning of the light signaled death.  For example, in Welsh mythology, this is the
day of the year when the God of Darkness, Goronwy, defeats the God of Light, Llew, and takes his place as
King of the world.  To this day in Japan, the equinox is celebrated by visits to the graves of family members,
at which time offerings of flowers and food are made and incense is burned.  The three days preceding
and following the equinox are called "higan," or the "Other side of the River of Death."
-   September Folklore 
 
 
"Leaves fall,
the days grow cold.
The Goddess pulls her mantle of Earth around Her
as You, O Great Sun God, sail toward the West
to the land of eternal enchantment,
wrapped in the coolness of night.
Fruits ripen,
seeds drip,
the hours of day and night are balanced."
-   Mabon Sabbat and Lore
 
"September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn.  The cricket chirps in the noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life.  The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the song birds, now silent or departed."
-   September Days   By Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont.  
 
"T'is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone."
-  Thomas Moore, 1779-1852, The Last Rose of Summer.
 
"Spring flowers are long since gone.  Summer's bloom hangs limp on every terrace.  The gardener's feet drag a bit on the dusty path and the hinge in his back is full of creaks."
-  Louise Seymour Jones
 
 
"Remember midsummer: the fragrance of box, of white roses
And of phlox. And upon a honeysuckle branch
Three snails hanging with infinite delicacy
-- Clinging like tendril, flake and thread, as self-tormented
And self-delighted as any ballerina,
just as in the orchard,
Near the apple trees, in the over-grown grasses
Drunken wasps clung to over-ripe pears
Which had fallen: swollen and disfigured.
For now it is wholly autumn: in the late
Afternoon as I walked toward the ridge where the hills begin,
There is a whir, a thrashing in the bush, and a startled
pheasant, flying out and up,
Suddenly astonished me, breaking the waking dream."
-   Delmore Schwartz, Remember Midsummer: The Fragrance of a Box
 
 "By all these lovely tokens
September days are here
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer."
-  Author Unknown
 
"Autumn arrives, array'd in splendid mein;
Vines, cluster'd full, add to the beauteous scene,
And fruit-trees cloth'd profusely laden, nod,
Complaint bowing to the fertile sod."
-   Farmer's Almanac, 1818
"As lovely as soft bits of fragile crinkled silk,
These rosy blossoms, clustered thick
Upon the heavy drooping boughs,
When shaken by a summer wind,
Drop down in swirling showers,
And drift awhile about the ground;
Then gathered into frothy heaps beneath the hedge,
They spread a frill of rosy lace around the green lawns edge."
-   Leda Clements, Crape Myrtle
 
 
 Image:  Ripe apples - clipartpanda.com



 


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