Poetry Friday: October

I hope the October you're having is as crisply beautiful as the October we're having here. This poem by Helen Hunt Jackson says it all. 

October
Helen Hunt Jackson

Bending above the spicy woods which blaze,
Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun
Immeasurably far; the waters run
Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways
With gold of elms and birches from the maze
Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one,
Escape from satin burs; her fringes done,
The gentian spreads them out in sunny days,
And, like late revelers at dawn, the chance
Of one sweet, mad, last hour, all things assail,
And conquering, flush and spin; while, to enhance
The spell, by sunset door, wrapped in a veil
Of red and purple mists, the summer, pale,
Steals back alone for one more song and dance.

("October" is in the public domain.)

Read more about Helen Hunt Jackson (who befriended Emily Dickinson when they were children) here at The Poetry Foundation.

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Amy Ludwig Vanderwater has the round-up at The Poem Farm.

(Photo above courtesy of FreeImages.com)