September

The beginning of September, a glimpse of autumn just over the horizon, makes us all feel a bit poetic, I think.  Not surprisingly, it has the same effect on actual poets.  Here's Helen Hunt Jackson's ode to the month.

SEPTEMBER
by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

HE 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.

"September" is reprinted from Poems. Helen Jackson. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892.

Let us hope that, before this month is too old, our yards will "flutter with yellow butterflies" and that we will have "the summer's best of weather" and "autumn's best of cheer."  I'm ready for the September change.