October's Bright Blue Weather

The weather for the past several days here in western PA has been so beautiful, and a fulfillment of this poem. I think we studied this poem in grade school, and I have hung a copy of it on my refrigerator each October for several years now!

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

October's Bright Blue Weather

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless vagrant,

And Golden-Rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When Gentians roll their fringes tight

To save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together,

And count like misers, hour by hour,

October's bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October's bright blue weather.

This poem can be found in:
Jackson, Helen. Poems. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893.
Stevenson, Burton Egbert, ed. The Home Book of Verse for Young Folks. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915.

This evening we have Peggy J. and Marie F. with us. We have had a lovely visit and it is so good to have them! They will start Gospel meetings in Brockway on Oct. 26. The workers are taking turns staying with Judy O.

We had Heidi, Kirsten, and Shane with us over the weekend while their parents went to Ohio for a wedding. Next post I will put up some brag picture!