Quotes for the Journey: Autumn There is a harmony in autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen. Percy Bysshe Shelley

winter - spring - summer

The season for enjoying the fullness of life--partaking of the harvest, sharing the harvest with others, and reinvesting and saving portions  of the harvest for yet another season of growth.      -Denis Waitley     Summer is already better, but the best is autumn.  It is mature, reasonable and serious, it glows  moderately and not frivolously. . . It cools down,  clears up, makes you reasonable. . .      -Valentin     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.       -Eric Sloane     Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity;  but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.  What person can stand with autumn  on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his or her world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?       -Hal Borland     Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, time seems speeded up.  What was is not and never again will be; what is is change.      -Edwin Way Teale      For humans, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.      -Edwin Way Teale

When autumn shadows throw their patterns across the land, they are not the images of fragile, dying leaves, not the bared arms of lofty elms, not shadows of a fading summer; but swinging shapes as of books upon a strap, of round and square boxes held under an arm, of hurrying little people heading towards the nearest school.      -Djuna Barnes

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.      -Nathaniel Hawthorne

October, here's to you.  Here's to the heady aroma of the frost-kissed apples, the winey smell of ripened grapes, the wild-as-the-wind smell of hickory nuts and the nostalgic whiff of that first wood smoke.      -Ken Weber

Children in Autumn Here, in the soft, sweet-smelling haze, a maple stands alone, a blaze of color, stirring memories of rustic lanes and giant trees; and there, along the curb for miles-- the leaves raked up in equal piles. Could there be anything we know that can evoke the wondrous glow of childhood more than trampling leaves? How clearly, then, the soul perceives-- amid the miracle of fall, that we are children, one and all. Oh, let me never grow too old to be bewitched by autumn's gold-- to share the overwhelming joy within the heart of that small boy who runs amuck when he perceives these tempting, ordered piles of leaves. Jean S. Platt Something told the wild geese Something told the wild geese It was time to go. Though the fields lay golden Something whispered, "snow." Leaves were green and stirring, Berries, luster-glossed, But beneath warm feathers Something cautioned, "frost." All the sagging orchards Steamed with amber spice But each wild breast stiffened At remembered ice. Something told the wild geese It was time to fly-- Summer sun was on their wings, Winter in their cry. Rachel Field

Why is it that so many of us persist in thinking that autumn is a sad season?  Nature has merely fallen asleep, and her dreams must be beautiful if we are to judge by her countenance.      -Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Autumn is easily my favorite time of the year.  The days have cooled down, the leaves have turned, and the world is busy preparing herself for winter.  There's something magical about the clear brisk days, the first smell of the woodstove or the fireplace, the first frost, the sounds of the Canadian geese overhead as they pass through on their way south, the canning of the late fruits and vegetables, the pumpkin and cider stands on the roadways.  School has started, and there's newness in the air, even though the season is the precursor to winter.  Somehow, the world knows that winter is necessary, and the long preparation for the cold of winter--the preparation which is autumn--is a beautiful, necessary part of the world.      -Tom Walsh

Autumn. . . makes a double demand.  It asks that we prepare for the future--that we be wise in the ways of garnering and keeping.  But it also asks that we learn to let go--to acknowledge the beauty of sparseness.      -Bonaro W. Overstreet

Autumn truly is what summer pretends to be:  the best of all seasons.  It is as glorious as summer is tedious; as subtle as summer is obvious; as refreshing as summer is wearying.  Autumn seems like paradise.       -Gregg Easterbrook

I like spring, but it is too young.  I like summer, but it is too proud.  So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tones mellower, its colors richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow.  Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age.  It knows the limitations of life and is content.      -Lin Yutang

Autumn is youthful, mirthful, frolicsome--the child of summer's joy--and on every side there are suggestions of juvenility and mischief. While spring is a careful artist who paints each flower with delicate workmanship, autumn flings whole pots of paint about in wild carelessness. The crimson and scarlet colours reserved for roses and tulips are splashed on the brambles till every bush is aflame, and the old creeper-covered house blushes like a sunset.      -Roger Wray

I've never known anyone yet who doesn't suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around. . . .  We're all eight years old again and anything is possible.      -Sue Grafton

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now Its mellowed richness on the clustered trees, And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds. Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved, Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the wayside a-weary. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. Bliss Carman

The Pace That Passes Understanding (excerpt) Autumn is not a time designed for speed; After the summer's careful ripening, Moments of quiet are the spirit's need And time to listen when the wood sprites sing, Time to absorb the beauty and take home Something to hold of blue October skies, Gold leaves to hoard for days we cannot roam. . . Autumn is timed for little country roads And hearts attuned to travel at their pace. . . . And is an extra hour too much to spend With all the countryside aflame with gold, With rich fulfillment marking summer's end And fall so soon a tale that has been told? October woodlands cry for time to wait; The beauty-wakened heart cries out to share This wonderland before it is too late, Before the frosty limbs stand gray and bare. Mary E. Linton

It seems to me that Autumn is the really austere season.  Everything burns into a glory of colour and disappears. The green splendour of Spring degenerates into lushness, the leaves are tarnished with dust, but the flaming reds and yellows, the pale gold, the rose colour, the splendid purple-red of these trees will swirl with the wind, will have one splendid moment of sailing in the blueness of the sky, one moment of motion beyond anything that a leaf could dream of. . . . I have seen this country for the first time at an austere season.  But it would always be austere because it is passionate. The earth burns with a colour of orange, with the colour of red, burns with a purple blackness, shows its ribs of stone, coloured, blanched, carved into fantasy.      -Ella Young

Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.      -George Eliot

Autumn Chant    Now the autumn shudders In the rose's root. Far and wide the ladders Lean among the fruit. Now the autumn clambers Up the trellised frame, And the rose remembers The dust from which it came. Brighter than the blossom On the rose's bough Sits the wizened orange, Bitter berry now; Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers The dust from which it came. Edna St. Vincent Millay

Autumn The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The berry's cheek is plumper, The rose is out of town. The maple wears a gayer scarf, The field a scarlet gown. Lest I should be old-fashioned, I'll put a trinket on. Emily Dickinson

November Night Listen. . . . With faint dry sound Likes steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisped, break from the trees And fall. Adelaide Crapsey

No Spring, nor Summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one Autumnal face. John Donne

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils. Cyril Connolly

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