Summer’s Best of Weather and Autumn’s Best of Cheer
This delightful excerpt of a poem by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885) is a description of all the “lovely tokens” of September. I remember liking it when I first read it in Grade Six out of a school reader. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always loved the signs of Fall beginning to come—the weather growing colder, the September plants blooming, and the trees turning colour. And even as I write this I can hear some of the early geese honking on their way south.
“September” is the sort of poem which awakes recollections in all of us, and probably that’s why it’s so refreshing to read. The rhyme and metre are simple, though faultless, and rather allow us to focus on the subject of the poem than demand our attention themselves.
So curl up in a comfortable place, away from sounds or distractions, and read this pretty little poem, and remember your own associations with the month of September.
September
The 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.