Thursday, September 1, 2011

Autumn blessings to all....








A Dream of Autumn: James Whitcomb Riley

Mellow hazes, lowly trailing
Over wood and meadow, veiling
Sombre skies, with wild-fowl sailing
Sailor-like to foreign lands;
And the north wind overleaping
Summer’s brink, and flood-like sweeping
Wrecks of roses where the weeping-
Willows wring their helpless hands.
Flared, like Titan torches flinging
Flakes of flame and embers, springing
From the vale, the trees stand swinging
In the moaning atmosphere;
While in dead’ning lands the lowing
Of the cattle, sadder growing,
Fills the sense to overflowing
With the sorrow of the year.
Sorrowfully, yet the sweeter
Sings the brook in rippled metre
Under boughs that lithely teeter
Lorn birds, answering from the shores
Through the viny, shady-shiny
Interspace, shot with tiny
Flying motes that fleck the winy
Wave-engraven sycamores.
Fields of ragged stubble, wrangled
With rank weeds, and shocks of tangled
Corn, with crests like rent plumes dangled
Over Harvest’s battle-plain;
And the sudden whir and whistle
Of the quail that, like a missle,
Whizzes over thorn and thistle,
And, a missle, drops again.
Muffled voices, hid in thickets
Where the redbird stops to stick its
Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets
Of the truant’s rustic trap;
And the sound of laughter ringing
Where, within the wild vine swinging,
Climb Bacchante’s schoolmates, flinging
Purple clusters in her lap.
Rich as wine, the sunset flashes
Round the tilted world, and dashes
Up the sloping west, and splashes
Red foam over sky and sea-
Till my dream of Autumn, paling
In the slendor all-prevailing,
Like a sallow leaf goes sailing
Down the silence solemnly.

7 comments:

  1. Ah tis just around the corner now. I can wait just a little bit longer lol... Although I love fall I am not overjoyed as what follows. LJ

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  2. Love the poem, love the music, love visiting your blog, dear Laura! Must go steam grape juice! Talk to you later. xxoo Nancy

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  3. Oh complete serenity!!! So lovely and so beautiful!! Thank You so much for the lovely poem and gorgeous photos xxooxx

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  4. What a beautiful post today! I'm so ready for fall to hurry up and get here.

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  5. Thank you all so much... seems we all have "fall fever"! Picked a bunch of apples which hurricane Irene winds and rain flung off the trees, so made applesauce and need to dry the remainder after I make an apple pizza or few!
    LJ, I am well-known for my love of winter and snow, but do NOT have much company at all!
    Nancy, I can almost smell that grape juice... yummmmm!
    Pam, Glad you enjoyed the post. Pictures are from last autumn; the foilage is only just beginning to show bits and pieces of color.
    Mama-Bug, I agree with you about autumn... it's my favorite time of year!
    Thank you all for visiting! xox

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  6. Laura, Did you write the magnificent prose/? You are a wordsmith of rare talent! I simply loved it. The haunting music just adds to the ambiance. As for the empty house on the bottom picture, I just want someone to love it again, save it, live in it, revive it, make it a home! What a grand place it would be.

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  7. Oh no, Jeri... not me. Twas written by one of my favorites, James Whitcomb Riley.
    I drove past that old house again last week, someone does live there, if you can imagine. So at least it is lived in...
    I love taking photographs of old abandoned houses and barns to put to canvas. One I did for my mom and dad several years ago of a particularly run down house in Vermont. I drove past it just a few years back, and it is all fixed up, painted a cheery old red! I was flabbergasted!

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