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.

Glow.

The PUMPKINS in the CORN

Amber and blue, the smoke behind the hill,

Where in the glow fades out the morning star,

Curtains the autumn cornfield, sloped afar,

And strikes an acrid savour on the chill.

The hilltop fence shines saffron o'er the still

Unbending ranks of bunched and bleaching corn,

And every pallid stalk is crisp with morn,

Crisp with the silver autumn morns distil.

Purple the narrowing alleys stretched between

The spectral shocks, a purple harsh and cold,

But spotted, where the gadding pumpkins run,

With bursts of blaze that startle the serene

Like sudden voices,—globes of orange bold,

Elate to mimic the unrisen sun.

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

Spooky.

Wyeth, Mischief Night, 1994

Mr. Macklin takes his knife 

And carves the yellow pumpkin face: 

Three holes bring eyes and nose to life, 

The mouth has thirteen teeth in place. 

Then Mr. Macklin just for fun 

Transfers the corn-cob pipe from his 

Wry mouth to Jack’s, and everyone 

Dies laughing! O what fun it is 

Till Mr. Macklin draws the shade 

And lights the candle in Jack’s skull. 

Then all the inside dark is made 

As spooky and as horrorful 

As Halloween, and creepy crawl 

The shadows on the tool-house floor, 

With Jack’s face dancing on the wall. 

O Mr. Macklin! where's the door?

David McCord

Smoky-smelling.

Wyeth, Albinos Study, 2002

And if it's around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash grey at twilight, it seems Hallowe'en will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.

But one strange wild dark long year, Hallowe'en came early.

 

One year Hallowe'en came on October 24, three hours after midnight.

Ray Bradbury, from Something Wicked This Way Comes

Creeping.

JACK FROST

The door was shut, as doors should be,

 Before you went to bed last night;

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,

 And left your window silver white.

He must have waited till you slept;

 And not a single word he spoke,

But pencilled o’er the panes and crept

 Away again before you woke.

And now you cannot see the hills

 Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;

But there are fairer things than these

 His fingers traced on every pane.

Rocks and castles towering high;

 Hills and dales, and streams and fields;

And knights in armor riding by,

 With nodding plumes and shining shields.

And here are little boats, and there

 Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;

And yonder, palm trees waving fair

 On islands set in silver seas,

And butterflies with gauzy wings;

 And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;

And fruit and flowers and all the things

 You see when you are sound asleep.

For, creeping softly underneath

 The door when all the lights are out,

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe,

 And knows the things you think about.

He paints them on the window-pane

 In fairy lines with frozen steam;

And when you wake you see again

 The lovely things you saw in dream.

Gabriel Setoun

Light.

Wyeth, Pumpkin Hill, 1977

THEME in YELLOW

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Carl Sandburg

Glorification.

Pumpkins.

Larsson, October (The Pumpkins), 1883

Harty-like.

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! ...
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

James Whitcomb Riley

Carving.

The season's first carving ...