Delight.

Volkov, The Fall of the Patriarch, 1997

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings...

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

W.B. Yeats

Musing.

OCTOBER

Come, dowie October, in mantle o' yellow, 

Wi' the Hyp an' the Haw on thy fast-fading croon ; 

Come, soothe me a blink wi' thy speech sad and mellow, 

As 'mang the brown Brackens I saf t'lay me doun! 

O, lay on my lips — frae the Simmer sun droothie — 

Ae blab o' the Bramble, November shall mar ; 

An' read me yer sermon sae saftly an' coothie, 

While draps the last Row'n in th  deep rocky scaur! 

Thou tell'st me the friens that I loo'd in Life's  Simmer, 

Like thy chequered leaves frae my heart dra  awa"; 

An'  eave, o' the licht o' ilk face, but a glimmer, 

Aboon the wild waste o' Death's drear driftin' snaw! 

October, I lo'e thee! Thy whisper is soothing; 

There is Lore in thy face, there is wealth in thy bowers : 

Thy pensiveness adds but a charm to my musing — 

And sweet are my dreams through thy fast ebbing hours ! 

James Rigg

Happy Birthday, Horowitz

On this day in 1903, pianist Vladimir Horowitz was born.

Here he his in a performance of Robert Schumann's "Träumerei" ...

Faded.

 Wyeth, Pumpkins, 1969

AUTUMN

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes

 The casement all the day

And from the mossy elm tree takes

 The faded leaf away

Twirling it by the window-pane

With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig

 Dance till the shut of eve

The sparrow on the cottage rig

 Whose chirp would make believe

That spring was just now flirting by

In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke

 Curl upwards through the naked trees

The pigeons nestled round the coat

 On dull November days like these

The cock upon the dung-hill crowing

The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast

 Falls on the stubble lea

The acorns near the old crows nest

 Fall pattering down the tree

The grunting pigs that wait for all

Scramble and hurry where they fall

John Clare

'Tis Autumn.