Part of autumn it is, perhaps To find a beauty in being slow; Fears for the unripe grain are past, All our harvest is safe from the snow. And before snow flies there's another harvest -- Apple-green wisdom slowly mellowing, Smooth hard nuts for cracking and munching, Leaves to shed that are sapped and yellowing. These take a golden space of time To gather and handle, time unreckoned, Quaint old time with the latch-string out -- Not the modern locks of minute and second; Time to wonder, and measure the space From the fruit in your hand to the far horizon, Time to think until your forget The pumpkin-heap you had your eyes on; Time so wide it takes life in Across its worn old wooden sill -- A shining load of human straws. In time's great barn, hay-strewn and still Fronting the stubble fields, I pause, Turning my thoughts in the afternoon sun To catch a tinge of ripeness so. Part of autumn it is, perhaps To find a beauty in being slow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO NANNETTE FALK-AUERBACH by SIDNEY LANIER WINTER NIGHT SONG by SARA TEASDALE THE RESOLVE by MARY LEE CHUDLEIGH FREDERICK DOUGLASS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR SPEAKIN' O' CHRISTMAS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR REQUIEM FOR ONE SLAIN IN BATTLE by GEORGE LUNT THE NIGHTINGALE by PHILIP SIDNEY TWO SONNETS: 1. CHRIST AND LOVE'S ROSE-CROWN by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |