darlings
we had a day of autumn here yesterday!
it was most exciting.
not an Entire Day, actually – because it was over by lunchtime, of course, when the sun finally came out.
but enough fruit-falling-feeling to herald a moment of Philip Larkin which we found here.
And now the leaves suddenly lose strength.
Decaying towers stand still, lurid, lanes-long,
And seen from landing windows, or the length
Of gardens, rubricate afternoons. New strong
Rain-bearing night-winds come: then
Leaves chase warm buses, speckle statued air,
Pile up in corners, fetch out vague broomed men
Through mists at morning.And no matter where goes down,
The sallow lapsing drift in fields
Or squares behind hoardings, all men hesitate
Separately, always, seeing another year gone –
Frockcoated gentleman, farmer at his gate,
Villein with mattock, soldiers on their shields,
All silent, watching the winter coming on.
and, quite naturally, a reflective Feeling gives rise to a little Keats:
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-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed 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-brimmed their clammy cell.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-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed 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 cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.John Keats
and again, this morning, it was a slightly chilly start to the day and rather lovely as a consequence of waking early and spending a few moments just looking out of the window.
before getting down to work.
what’s the weather doing in your part of the world?
we note from the world-of-instagram that the sun is already faint over Berlin (both the metaphorical place that is forever Berlin and there where it really lives with its own trains and subways and skyline).
as we mourn the passing of Mr. Lou Reed who passed through his own autumn and reached the winter of his life too, too s o o n.
It was Keat’s birthday 31st October so towards the end of October is a good time to be thinking of him :)
of course! how could we forget.
but we did.
*sighs*
dear Mr. Keats
aaah, autumn in L.A., that’s what you look like… beautiful like a woman that seems not to be affected by age, but yet needs her pale blue pashmina on late summer evenings…
autumn in berlin has been golden and glorious until late night, when a really violent storm killed people in europe, crushed trees, broke buildings. today berlin made a face of “storm? what storm?”
the sad, sad lou reed news jumped at me on twitter, but moronically illustrated with the face of lou bega *facepalm*
ooo under sad circumstances but *facepalm* most excellent gesture description!
Oh, I do love a blue and white tray cloth on a real tray. But I needed a tissue to go with A Perfect Day…too sad. Your autumnal morning is lovely.
we do feel very sad every time we hear it – and we always did – because we knew that day would come…
:(
Dearest G
Pip, the consumptive and the passing of Lou Reed.
Matters of great import on an Autumn day.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
*humblebow* back in your general direction dear Dandy aux parfum(s).
What a beautiful autumn! It’s still sunny here in Nice South of France, but our friends and family in the UK are having a horrible time weather wise! =^.^=
we heard they named the STORM “Jude” but not after the Beatles song, alas.
*wavingtoFrance*
because it’s So Much Nicer In Nice!