Indian Summer

Autumn Song

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Let's go down the road together, you and I,

Let's go down the road together,

Through the vivid autumn weather

Let's go down the road together when the red leaves fly.

Let's go searching, searching after

Joy and mirth and love and laughter--

Let's go down the road together, you and I.

October's Bright Blue Weather

Helen Hunt Jackson

O sun and skies and clouds of June

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather.

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless, vagrant,

And goldenrod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fringes tight,

To save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burs

Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks

In idle, golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods for winter waiting.

When comrades seek sweet country haunt

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers hour by hour

October's bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October's bright blue weather.

Autumn Day

Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord, it is time.

Summer was very grand.

Now cast your shadow on the sundials,

and loose the winds on the open fields.

Command the last fruits to be full;

give them two more southerly days.

Force them into perfection and

chase the last sweetness into heavy wine. 

Who has no house will not build one now,

Who is now alone will stay alone,

will wake and read and write long letters

and wander up and down the streets restlessly,

driven like leaves.