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| Photo by Kelly Schnell |
In this month of All Souls, the foliage frames our remembering and the damp chill shivers through us, calling us to warm our souls in a love for these bare November days...
My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
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Thanks for the picture. We don't get these kinds of days here in California, and I sometimes miss them, as well as the snow of Maine and New Hampshire where I grew up. (I also love our year-round sunshine.) And thanks for Frost's poem. He is my favorite poet, perhaps because I can relate to his New Englandness and perhaps because I have touched the mending wall, seen the west-running brook, and also bent the birches. Years ago (well, not that many years ago), I co-edited a book with a colleague from Afton, England. Our published, Georgetown University Press, required a contract with original signatures. She ended up coming to New Hampshire on vacation, and so then did I. We met and signed the contract on Robert Frost's farm, which is walking distance form my uncle's farm. Have you ever been there? It's well worth the trip!
ReplyDeleteThis is lovely. It takes a special eye to see the beauty in the bare branches and to 'love the bare November days'
ReplyDeleteAndie
Thanks, Father for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis has long been one of my favorite poems - among many by Robert Frost. I so embrace the season and the sentiment.
It brings fond memories of when we lived on a 200 acre apple and peach farm near Gettysburg. Our kids were primed to hear Dad come in from a brisk walk 'round the orchards on a moody, foggy day and proclaim, "The love of bare November days!"
Best of the season to all.
And thanks to you, Steve, for sharing that great memory!
ReplyDelete