Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.
Fade, flowers, fade! Nature will have it so; 'tis but what we in our autumn do.
Life is the blossoming of flowers in the spring, the ripening of fruit in the fall, the rhythm of the earth and of nature. Life is the cry of cicadas signalling the end of summer, migratory birds winging south in a transparent autumn sky, fish frolicking in a stream. Life is the joy beautiful music installs in us, the thrilling sight of a mountain peak reddened by the rising sun, the myriad combinations and permutations of visible and invisible phenomena. Life is all things.
Now I realize that the trees blossom in Spring and bear fruit in Summer without seeking praise; and they drop their leaves in Autumn and become naked in Winter without fearing blame.
It was October again. . . a glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain - amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time. I trust in God,-the right shall be the right And other than the wrong, while he endures. I trust in my own soul, that can perceive The outward and the inward,-Nature's good And God's.
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.
A forest," William said, his expression distant. "Where the ground is dry soil and stone. Where tall trees grow and centuries of autumn carpet their roots. Where the wind smells of game and wildflowers. " "Why, that was lovely, Lord Bill. Do you ever write poetry? Something for your blueblood lady?" "No. " "She doesn't like poetry?" "Leave it. " Hehe. "Oh, so you have a lady. How interes--
The world is tired, the year is old, The faded leaves are glad to die.
Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless that the colors of an autumn forest. . . . Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them , in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.
The autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours. I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce.
Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance. What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show.
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.
She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last.
The ascent of any route begins, in dreams at least, the autumn before. Our minds ring, involuntarily, with the alluring names of mountains, aiguilles, faces and ridges, Is it the name itself which is so tempting, or the picture we have of the mountain itself, or does the appeal come from our feeling of the actual process of climbing? All of us have our reasons, innumerable, personal and complex. From many points of view a climb is a challenge we must meet.
When you live on Cold Mountain long enough the autumns pass quickly When you live alone you have no worries When you leave the doors open no one bothers you The bubbling stream runs forever In the cave a clay pot boils over a fire on the ground A wandering breeze stirs the fragrant pines When hungry I eat one simple meal And lean against the rock in complete harmony
It almost seems as if autumn were the true creator, more creative than the spring, which is too even-toned, more creative when it comes with its will-to-change and shatters the much too ready-made, self-satisfied and really almost bourgeois-complacent image of summer.
I like autumn. The drama of it; the golden lion roaring through the back door of the year, shaking its mane of leaves. A dangerous time; of violent rages and deceptive calm, of fireworks in the pockets and conkers in the fist.
Designers want me to dress like Spring, in billowing things. I don't feel like Spring. I feel like a warm red Autumn.