Rich Autumn Days

A little sunshine, blue skies again, and it feels like autumn, like a proper season, the mists-and-mellow-fruitfulness-Keats-kind. At school, it's the harvest festival. Charlie has been given a poem to memorise. I like that, though I don't think much of the poem!

Here - should you, like me, lament the passing of poetry memorisation and wish to program a few choice words into your little one's head the better to return, unbidden, in the years to come and give them countless joys - is a better one. It's by the Dorset poet W.H.Davies. It's not high art (not quite Keats, for sure) but it's well-crafted and pleasant and... memorable. I have. And I find the words coming back into my head at this time of year. Especially when the sun shines:

Rich Days

WELCOME to you rich Autumn days,

Ere comes the cold, leaf-picking wind;

When golden stocks are seen in fields,

All standing arm-in-arm entwined;

And gallons of sweet cider seen

On trees in apples red and green.

With mellow pears that cheat our teeth,

Which melt that tongues may suck them in;

With blue-black damsons, yellow plums,

Now sweet and soft from stone to skin;

And woodnuts rich, to make us go

Into the loneliest lanes we know.