If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.
For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.
A few days ago I walked along the edge of the lake and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made. The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.
There is a harmony In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.
I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.
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.
Fiery colors begin their yearly conquest of the hills, propelled by the autumn winds. Fall is the artist.
That time of year thou may'st in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,- Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.