There are so many great poems about fall. Even modern writers have an easy time with the season, but the baroque, antique language of older poets is really appealing when there’s a chill in the air. It’s like it’s easier to imagine the past and the spiritual more than at any other time of the year. Robert Frost has a great poem called                                                                                                                                                          ‘October’: 

 Great Choices from Katie O’Neil, our resident Poetry scholar.
O hushed October morning mild, 
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; 
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, 
sunset-1421010__4801Should waste them all. 
The crows above the forest call; 
Tomorrow they may form and go. 
O hushed October morning mild, 
Begin the hours of this day slow. 
Make the day seem to us less brief. 
Hearts not averse to being beguiled, 
Beguile us in the way you know. 
Release one leaf at break of day; 
At noon release another leaf; 
One from our trees, one far away. 
Retard the sun with gentle mist; 
Enchant the land with amethyst. 
Slow, slow! 
For the grapes’ sake, if the were all, 
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, 

                                                                                                                           Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
                                                                                                                              For the grapes’ sake along the all. 

 
 
 
Another great piece on autumn is William W. Campbell’s
‘An October Evening’:
 
 The woods are haggard and lonely,
 The skies are hooded for snow, 
 The moon is cold in Heaven, 
And the grasses are sere below.

 The bearded swamps are breathing
 A mist from meres afar, 
 And grimly the Great Bear circles
 Under the pale Pole Star.             IMG_3618

 There is never a voice in Heaven, 
 Nor ever a sound on earth, 
 Where the spectres of winter are rising
 Over the night’s wan girth. 

 There is slumber and death in the silence, 
 There is hate in the winds so keen; 
 And the flash of the north’s great sword-blade
 Circles its cruel sheen. 

 The world grows agèd and wintry,                                                
 Love’s face peakèd and white; 
 And death is kind to the tired ones
 Who sleep in the north to-night.