My mother used to recite a poem to me when I was a child. I believe it was called October's Bright Blue Weather. Who wrote this wonderful verse? I want to find a copy to help bring her close and remind me of her. Thank-you.

-- Cynthia L. Taylor (cleetay1@aol.com), April 17, 1999

Answers

Oh suns and skies and clouds of June, and flowers of June together, you cannot rival for one hour October's bright blue weather!

When loud the bumblebee makes haste, belated, thriftless vagrant, and golden Rod is dying fast, and lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When Gentians roll their fringes bright, to save them from the morning light, and chestnuts fall from satin burrs without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie in piles like jewels shining, and redder still on old stone walls are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things their white-winged seeds are sowing, and in the fields, still green and fair, late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks, in idle golding freighting, bright leaves sink noiselss in the hush of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts, by twos and twos together, and count like misers, hour by hour, October's bright blue weather.

Oh suns and skies and flowers of June, count all your boasts together, love loveth best of all the year October's bright blue weather!

by Helen Hunt Jackson

-- ilza (ilza@pobox.com), April 17, 1999.