September Poems

Table of Contents

1. In September

   by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

   
   

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   This windy, bright September afternoon
   My heart is wide awake, yet full of dreams.
   The air, alive with hushed confusion, teems
   With scent of grain-fields, and a mystic rune,
   Foreboding of the fall of Summer soon,
   Keeps swelling and subsiding, till there seems
   O'er all the world of valleys, hills, and streams,
   Only the wind's inexplicable tune.
   

   My heart is full of dreams, yet wide awake.
   I lie and watch the topmost tossing boughs
   Of tall elms, pale against the vaulted blue;
   But even now some yellowing branches shake,
   Some hue of death the living green endows:—
   If beauty flies, fain would I vanish too.
   

2. September

   by Annette Wynne

   Golden in the garden,
   Golden in the glen,
   Golden, golden, golden
   September's here again!
   Golden in the tree tops,
   Golden in the sky—
   Golden, golden, golden
   September's going by!
   

3. September

   In all my autumn dreams
   A future summer gleams,
   Passing the fairest glories of the present!

   – George Arnold
   September

   “

   by George Arnold

   
   

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   Sweet is the voice that calls
   From the babbling waterfalls
   In meadows where the downy seeds are flying;
   And soft the breezes blow,
   And eddying come and go
   In faded gardens where the rose is dying.
   

   Among the stubbled corn
   The blithe quail pipes at morn,
   The merry partridge drums in hidden places,
   And glittering insects gleam
   Above the reedy stream,
   Where busy spiders spin their filmy laces....

   At eve, cool shadows fall
   Across the garden wall,
   And on the clustered grapes to purple turning;
   And pearly vapors lie
   Along the eastern sky,
   Where the broad harvest-moon is redly burning.
   

   Ah, soon on field and hill
   The wind shall whistle chill,
   And patriarch swallows call their flocks together,
   To fly from frost and snow,
   And seek for lands where blow
   The fairer blossoms of a balmier weather.
   

   The cricket chirps all day,
   “O fairest summer, stay!”
   The squirrel eyes askance the chestnuts browning;
   The wild fowl fly afar
   Above the foamy bar,
   And hasten southward ere the skies are frowning.
   

   Now comes a fragrant breeze
   Through the dark cedar-trees,
   And round about my temples fondly lingers,
   In gentle playfulness,
   Like to the soft caress
   Bestowed in happier days by loving fingers.
   

   Yet, though a sense of grief
   Comes with the falling leaf,
   And memory makes the summer doubly pleasant,
   In all my autumn dreams
   A future summer gleams,
   Passing the fairest glories of the present!
   

4. September

   by Rebecca Hey

   Now the Earth yields her strength! The teeming ground
   Seems lighten'd of its curse: on every side
   The hills rejoice, the valleys far and wide
   Stand thick with corn, and harvest-songs resound.
   The garden its rich dainties scatters round,
   While lane and copse, by Nature only till'd,
   An ample store of humbler fruitage yield,
   Berries and nuts by Autumn suns embrown'd
   But, ah! amid such visions of delight,
   Those few rich tints upon the forest boughs,
   Like the fine flush, so ominously bright,
   Which on her victim's cheek Consumption throws,
   Too truly speak of wasting and decay,
   And, sighing, I pursue my woodland way.
   

5. September

   by Carlos Wilcox

   
   

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   The sultry summer past, September comes,
   Soft twilight of the slow-declining year.
   All mildness, soothing loneliness, and peace;
   The fading season ere the falling come,
   More sober than the buxom blooming May,
   And therefore less the favourite of the world,
   But dearest month of all to pensive minds.
   

   'Tis now far spent; and the meridian sun,
   Most sweetly smiling with attempered beams,
   Sheds gently down a mild and grateful warmth.
   Beneath its yellow lustre groves and woods,
   Checker'd by one night's frost with various hues,
   While yet no wind has swept a leaf away,
   Shine doubly rich. It were a sad delight
   Down the smooth stream to glide, and see it tinged
   Upon each brink with all the gorgeous hues,
   The yellow, red, or purple of the trees
   That singly, or in tufts, or forests thick
   Adorn the shores; to see, perhaps, the side
   Of some high mount reflected far below
   With its bright colours, intermix'd with spots
   Of darker green. Yes, it were sweetly sad
   To wander in the open fields, and hear,
   E'en at this hour, the noonday hardly past,
   The lulling insects of the summer's night;
   To hear, where lately buzzing swarms were heard,
   A lonely bee long roving here and there
   To find a single flower, but all in vain;
   Then rising quick and with a louder hum,
   In widening circles round and round his head,
   Straight by the listener flying clear away,
   As if to bid the fields a last adieu;
   To hear within the woodland's sunny side,
   Late fall of music, nothing save perhaps
   The sound of nutshells by the squirrel dropp'd
   From some tall beech fast falling through the leaves.
   

6. September Days

   by Helen L. Smith

   
   

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   O month of fairer, rarer days
   Than Summer's best have been;
   When skies at noon are burnished blue,
   And winds at evening keen;
   When tangled, tardy-blooming things
   From wild waste places peer,
   And drooping golden grain-heads tell
   That harvest-time is near.
   

   Though Autumn tints amid the green
   Are gleaming, here and there,
   And spicy Autumn odors float
   Like incense on the air,
   And sounds we mark as Autumn's own
   Her nearing steps betray,
   In gracious mood she seems to stand
   And bid the Summer stay.
   

   Though 'neath the trees, with fallen leaves
   The sward be lightly strown,
   And nests deserted tell the tale
   Of summer bird-folk flown;
   Though white with frost the lowlands lie
   When lifts the morning haze,
   Still there's a charm in every hour
   Of sweet September days.
   

7. September

   by John Charles McNeill

   
   

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   I have not been among the woods,
   Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods,
   

   The downy thistle-seeds take wing,
   Nor the squirrel at his garnering.
   

   And yet I know that, up to God,
   The mute month holds her goldenrod,
   

   That clump and copse, o'errun with vines,
   Twinkle with clustered muscadines,
   

   And in deserted churchyard places
   Dwarf apples smile with sunburnt faces.
   

   I know how, ere her green is shed,
   The dogwood pranks herself with red;
   

   How the pale dawn, chilled through and through,
   Comes drenched and draggled with her dew;
   

   How all day long the sunlight seems
   As if it lit a land of dreams,
   

   Till evening, with her mist and cloud,
   Begins to weave her royal shroud.
   

   If yet, as in old Homer's land,
   God walks with mortals, hand in hand,
   

   Somewhere to-day, in this sweet weather,
   Thinkest thou not they walk together?
   

8. September

   by Helen Hunt Jackson

   
   

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   The golden-rod is yellow;
   The corn is turning brown;
   The trees in apple orchards
   With fruit are bending down.
   

   The gentian’s bluest fringes
   Are curling in the sun;
   In dusty pods the milkweed
   Its hidden silk has spun.
   

   The sedges flaunt their harvest,
   In every meadow nook;
   And asters by the brook-side
   Make asters in the brook.
   

   From dewy lanes at morning
   The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
   At noon the roads all flutter
   With yellow butterflies.
   

   By all these lovely tokens
   September days are here,
   With summer’s best of weather,
   And autumn’s best of cheer.
   

   But none of all this beauty
   Which floods the earth and air
   Is unto me the secret
   Which makes September fair.
   

   ‘T is a thing which I remember;
   To name it thrills me yet:
   One day of one September
   I never can forget.
   

9. September

   by Esse V. Hathaway

   
   

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   Blaze on blaze of scarlet sumach,
   Roadsides lined with radiant gold,
   Purple ironweed, regal, slender,
   Rasping locust, shrill and bold.
   

   Dusty smell in field and upland,
   Sky of copper mixed with blue,
   Life intense as is the weather—
   Let's away, just me and you!
   

10. September

    by Ellen P. Allerton

    
    

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    'Tis autumn in our northern land.
    The summer walks a queen no more;
    Her sceptre drops from out her hand;
    Her strength is spent, her passion o'er.
    On lake and stream, on field and town,
    The placid sun smiles calmly down.
    

    The teeming earth its fruit has borne;
    The grain fields lie all shorn and bare;
    And where the serried ranks of corn
    Wave proudly in the summer air,
    And bravely tossed their yellow locks,
    Now thickly stands the bristling shocks.
    

    On sunny slope, on crannied wall
    The grapes hang purpling in the sun;
    Down to the turf the brown nuts fall,
    And golden apples, one by one.
    Our bins run o'er with ample store—
    Thus autumn reaps what summer bore.
    

    The mill turns by the waterfall;
    The loaded wagons go and come;
    All day I hear the teamster's call,
    All day I hear the threshers hum;
    And many a shout and many a laugh
    Comes breaking through the clouds of chaff.
    

    Gay, careless sounds of homely toil!
    With mirth and labor closely bent
    The weary tiller of the soil
    Wins seldom wealth, but oft content.
    'Tis better still if he but knows
    What sweet, wild beauty round him glows.
    

    The brook glides toward the sleeping lake—
    Now babbling over sinning stones;
    Now under clumps of bush and brake,
    Hushing its brawl to murmuring tones;
    And now it takes its winding path
    Through meadows green with aftermath.
    

    The frosty twilight early falls,
    But household fires burn warm and red.
    The cold may creep without the walls,
    And growing things lie stark and dead—
    No matter, so the hearth be bright
    When household faces meet to-night.
    

11. September

    by Ada A. Mosher

    The Autumn curfew rings: put out your light
    Ye Summer-subjects all; to sleep, ye Flowers:
    And quench your fires for the Winter night,
    Ye Crimson Roses, that would keep late hours.
    

12. A September Morning in Nebraska

    by C. M. Barrow

    
    

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    The sun has not yet risen, but his golden glow,
    Lights up the misty portals of the far off east;
    The wavering shadows o’er the prairies come and go,
    And all the eerie sounds of night have ceased.
    

    Nature’s own songsters, from the cotton trees,
    Fill all the languorous air with melody.
    The corn fields rustle in the gentle morning breeze,
    And from the coming dawn the night-mist flees.
    

    Anon a golden disc appears to view,
    Afar, o’er shimmering seas of grass and corn—
    Like diamonds shine the myriad drops of dew,
    Up flies the lark, another day is born.
    

13. September

    by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    
    

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    My life's long radiant Summer halts at last,
    And lo! beside my path way I behold
    Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold
    Has heralded her presence; but a vast
    Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed
    Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold
    Subdues the vivid colouring of bold
    And passion-hued emotions. I will cast
    

    My August days behind me with my May,
    Nor strive to drag them into Autumn's place,
    Nor swear I hope when I do but remember.
    Now violet and rose have had their day,
    I'll pluck the soberer asters with good grace
    And call September nothing but September.
    

14. A Morning in September

    by Kenneth Morris

    
    

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    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    She wanders speechless, sibylline,
    By ghostly coastlines half unseen—
    Dim shores, wan seas, and grey, pale skies.
    Tiptoe, and hushed with mysteries
    Unwhisperable—aloof of mien,
    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    She wanders, speechless, sibylline.
    

    Grey Druidess of the dreaming eyes,
    You give no gold for Summer's green,
    Nor deck the trees in passing sheen
    Of gilt and carmined heraldries;
    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    You wander speechless, sibylline!
    

15. September

    by A. B.

    An afternoon more calm has never shone.
    The caterpillar labors through the grass;
    The garden spider, splendid on her throne,
    Heeds not the puffs of wind that overpass
    And shake her citadel; with downward head
    She keeps her only watch, indifferent
    To time. The ghostly smoke that curls from dead
    Damp leaves heaped by the wall is indolent
    In all its ways. And quiet sounds are meet:
    The worker's thoughtful whistle here or there,
    A wagon creaking through the shady street,
    A gentle whinny trembling in the air,
    The sparrow's cheep, and sweeter than all these,
    The old-knife-grinder's bell on the light breeze.
    

16. Golden-Rod

    by Mary B. Lee

    
    

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    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    She wanders speechless, sibylline,
    By ghostly coastlines half unseen—
    Dim shores, wan seas, and grey, pale skies.
    Tiptoe, and hushed with mysteries
    Unwhisperable—aloof of mien,
    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    She wanders, speechless, sibylline.
    

    Grey Druidess of the dreaming eyes,
    You give no gold for Summer's green,
    Nor deck the trees in passing sheen
    Of gilt and carmined heraldries;
    Pearl-pale from some dim Paradise
    You wander speechless, sibylline!
    

17. Bye, September

    by Gulnur Azbergenova

    
    

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    Thanks for everything, September
    I accomplished more getting better
    New country and new friends
    As I opened a new chapter!
    

    Another month passed by
    Now, I have to say goodbye
    Almost a year is behind
    Time can never be owned.
    

    Not days, but memories matter
    Never sit still, explore more
    Travel and experience adventure
    Take photos, later to remember
    

    Feeling I became more mature
    Had funny moments to capture
    Surely each new month is a new chance
    Enabling me to advance!
    

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