A Calendar of Sonnets : September, by Helen Hunt Jackson

The first of September, so over to Helen Hunt  Jackson for the monthly forecast:

 

 September

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!
The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung
On wands; the chestnut’s yellow pennons tongue
To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped
In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;
And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among
The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung
Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped
The purple grape,–last thing to ripen, late
By very reason of its precious cost.
O Heart, remember, vintages are lost
If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.
Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy’s estate,
Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

Almost a freezing night-dew yesterday morning in Little Bowden.  Certainly the mornings are drawing in on me –

Little Bowden, 6.30, 31st August 2010