The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.

The sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold The purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough Drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.

The day is yet one more yellow leaf And without turning I kiss the light By an old well on the last of the month Gathering wild rose hips In the sun.

Although it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in the gloaming almost invisible, A dark purple-brown.

Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days.

Names written in the pale sky. Names rising in the updraft amid buildings. Names silent in stone Or cried out behind a door. Names blown over the earth and out to sea.

Blue poured into summer blue, A hawk broke from his cloudless tower, The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew That part of my life was over.

The holidays were fruitful, but must end; One August evening had a cooler breath; Into each mind intruding duties crept; Under the cinders burned the fires of home.

Forget there are any political rings Just think of the butter and eggs and things; So wash off the buggy and hitch up the mare, And we’ll all go out to the county fair.

Near the shore’s arm of dune that holds the pond, A kayak glides, Someone seeking peace And looking up to find it in the sky.

At Great Pond The sun, rising, Scrapes his orange breast On the thick pines, And down tumble A few orange feathers into The dark water.

The moon is at her full, and riding high, Floods the calm fields with light. The airs that hover in the summer sky Are all asleep to-night.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect And the immortelles of perfect pitch And that moment when the bird sings very close To the music of what happens.

In the dog days of summer as muslin curls on its own heat And crickets cry in the black walnut tree The wind lifts up my life And sets it some distance from where it was.

That beautiful season the Summer! Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; And the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

This is America, This vast, confused beauty, This staring, restless speed of loveliness, Mighty, overwhelming, crude, of all forms, Making grandeur out of profusion.

Winter is cold-hearted, Spring is yea and nay, Autumn is a weather cock Blown every way. Summer days for me When every leaf is on its tree.

My father moved through theys of we, Singing each new leaf out of each tree (And every child was sure that spring Danced when she heard my father sing).

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run – Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!