At approximately the middle of each photo are yellow leaves, the visible sign of autumn.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves or few or none ...
I'm trying to quote from memory the opening lines of a sonnet by Shakespeare. Now, I'll google it and have the full text in no time.
Here it is:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
The poet here speaks of himself, really, more than the season; he is in the autumn of his life, but autumn is that time of year when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang upon those boughs which shake against the cold, bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
This autumn is not as advanced. There are more than a few leaves hanging on the boughs, and the choirs are not yet bare and ruined. The sweet birds still sing. But yellow leaves are here.
2 comments:
I wish I had poetry on the tip of my tongue like you, Jan. I need to read more of it, I guess.
Actually, I have it at the tips of my fingers, when I use google. :-) Sometimes I pick a word, like "autumn," and google "autumn poem." When I do remember some phrases it's usually either stuff I studied in college or stuff I taught in my brief career as an English teacher.
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