Song: Half Hope.

    August is gone and now this is September,
        Softer the sun in a cloudier sky;
    Yellow the leaves grow and apples grow golden,
        Blackberries ripen and hedges undress.
    Watch and you'll see the departure of summer,
        Here is the end, this the last month of all:
    Pause and look back and remember its promise,
        All that looked open and easy in May.

    Nothing will stay them, the seasons go onward,
        Lightly the bright months fly out of my hand,
    Softly the leading note calls a new octave;
        Autumn is coming and what have I done?
    Even as summer my young days go over,
        No day to pause on and nowhere to rest:
    Slowly they go but implacably onwards,
        Ah! and my dreams, alas, still they are dreams.

    How shall I force all my flowers to fruition,
        Use up the season of ripening sun?
    Softly the years go but going have vanished,
        Soon I shall find myself empty and old.
    Yet I feel in myself bright buds and blossoms,
        Promise of mellowest bearing to be.
    Still I have time beside what I have wasted:
        Life shall be good to me, work shall be sweet.

Edward Shanks

Edward Shanks was an English writer, poet, and novelist, known for his literary contributions during the early 20th century. Born on June 11, 1892, in London, Shanks attended Cambridge University where he was a member of the 'War Poets' of World War I. His works reflect the turmoil and changes of his time. Besides poetry, he wrote novels, essays, and book reviews, contributing significantly to English literature. He passed away on May 4, 1953.

Edward Shanks

A New Song about the Sea.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Bramber.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Sonnets on Separation I.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Song: Fear in the Night.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

September

Now hath the summer reached her golden close,
And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul,
Scarcely perceives from her divine repose
How near, how swift, the inevitable goal:
Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet
The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone,
And through the soft long wondering days goes on
The silent sere decadence sad and sweet.

The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled,
Children of light, too fearful of the gloom;
The sun falls low, the secret word is said,
The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb;
Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace,
The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more,
Across the river's shadow-haunted floor,
The paths of skimming swallows interlace.

Already in the outland wi...

Archibald Lampman

Song in Time of Waiting.

    Because the days are long for you and me,
        I make this song to lighten their slow time,
    So that the weary waiting fruitful be
        Or blossomed only by my limping rhyme.
                The days are very long
        And may not shortened be by any chime
        Of measured words or any fleeting song.
    Yet let us gather blossoms while we wait
    And sing brave tunes against the face of fate.

    Day after day goes by: the exquisite
        Procession of the variable year,
    Summer, a sheaf with flowers bound up in it,
        And autumn, tender till the frosts appear
                And dry the humid skies;
        And winter following on, aloof, austere,
        Clad in the garments of a frore sunrise;
    And spring again.    Ma...

Edward Shanks

Autumnal

Pale amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these.

Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time's deceit.

Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.

Beyond the pearled horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

September.

Oh, soon the forests all will boast
    A crown of red and gold;
A purple haze will circle round
    The mountains dim and old;
Afar the hills, now green and fair,
    Their sombre robes will wear;
A mist-like veil will dim the sun
    And linger on the air.

Already seems the earth half sad
    The summer-child is dead;
And who can tell the dreams gone by,
    The tales of life unsaid?
September is a glowing time;
    A month of happy hours;
Yet in its crimson heart lies hid
    The frost that kills the flowers.

Life, too, may feel the glory near
    And wear its crown of gold;
Yet are the snows not nearest then?
    Are hearts not growing old?
September is the prime of life,
    The glory of the year;
Yet when the lea...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

The End Of Summer

The rose, that wrote its message on the noon's
Bright manuscript, has turned her perfumed face
Towards Fall, and waits, heart-heavy, for the moon's
Pale flower to take her place.

With eyes distraught, and dark disheveled hair,
The Season dons a tattered cloak of storm
And waits with Night that, darkly, seems to share
Her trouble and alarm.

It is the close of summer. In the sky
The sunset lit a fire of drift and sat
Watching the last Day, robed in empire, die
Upon the burning ghat.

The first leaf crimsons and the last rose falls,
And Night goes stalking on, her cloak of rain
Dripping, and followed through her haunted halls
By all Death's phantom train.

The sorrow of the Earth and all that dies,
And all that suffers, in her breast sh...

Madison Julius Cawein

The End Of The Summer

The birds laugh loud and long together
    When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
    Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
    Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
    Might each gaze into the other's face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
    Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
    (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water's edges
    A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
    It flutters away on the summer's track.

The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
    Bowed all su...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox