Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, "You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams."
Said the leaf indignant, "Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing."
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again -- and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, "O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams."
Khalil Zibran
(The Madman Chapter 30)
After the rain, the empty mountain at dusk is full of autumn air. A bright moon shines between the pines; The clear spring water glides over the rocks. Bamboo leaves rustling — the washer-girls bound home. Water lilies swaying — a fisher-boat goes down. Never mind that spring plants are no longer green. I am here to stay my noble friends!
Wang Wei
( Translated by Edward C. Chang)
Autumn
Autumn, the season of playful mirth. When a misty hue veils the maiden earth and the wind dances in a spiral and whistle.
When the enchantress moon sprinkles silver dust all over a dark and restless sky. When the frosty bosom of earth quivers at his meaningful glances.
She stretches out to embrace that stooping lofty lover in her arms. Only to find out in the first ray of light the spell broken, the magician gone.
All she has managed to capture on brows of tender petals are her own sweat and tears. These fragile little dew drops. A memento of a fleeting joy.
Ravishing nature begins to lament peeling away newly gained mirage.
-Shail Agrawal
Ode To Autumn
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; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
