Red October / Helen Gray Cone

Red Ocober

Red October, and the slow leaf sailing;
All the maples flaring scarlet splendor,
All the dogwoods glowing crimson glory,
All the oak-leaves bronze, the beech-leaves golden:

Blue, ah blue! the reaches of the river,
Blue the sky above the russet mountain,
Blue the creek among the tawny marshes,
Blue the tart wild-grape beside the hill-road:

At our feet the burnished chestnut shining;
Scent of autumn, and the brown leaves’ rustle;
Cloudy clematis among the brambles,
Orange bittersweet along the wayside.

Days too-perfect, priceless for their passing,
Colored with the light of evanescence,
Fragrant with the breath of frailest beauty —
Days ineffable of red October!

~~
Helen Gray Cone (1859-1934)
from The Coat without a Seam, and other poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Helen Gray Cone biography

"Red October" read by The Reader Reads.

An October Sunset / Archibald Lampman

An October Sunset

One moment, the slim cloudflakes seem to lean
With their sad sunward faces aureoled,
And longing lips set downward brightening
To take the last sweet hand kiss of the king,
Gone down beyond the closing west acold;
Paying no reverence to the slender queen,
That like a curvèd olive leaf of gold
Hangs low in heaven, rounded toward sun,
Or the small stars that one by one unfold
Down the gray border of the night begun.

~~
Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 1883
from Among the Millet, and other poems, 1888

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Archibald Lampman biography

 "An October Sunset" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

October's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured  poem for October 2026:

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table

[...]

(read by Eliot)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock-ts.html

Penny's Top 20 / September 2026

    

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in September 2026:

  1.  4 poems, Tom Hendricks

  2.  The History of the Airplane, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  3.  Bus Ride on a Summer Night, George J. Dance

  4.  9/11, Robert Pinsky

  5.  The School Boy, William Blake

  6.  School, Winifred Welles

  7.  The Names, Billy Collins

  8.  In Memory of a Happy Day in February, Anne Brontë 

  9.  2 poems from "September's Song", Lucille Clifton

10.  Summer's End, Robert Hillyer

11.  World Trade Center, Julia Vinograd

12.  Poem for Kathy, Will Dockery

13.  Summer, Richard Chenevix Trench

14.  The Dwarf, Wallace Stevens

15.  Large Red Man Reading, Wallace Stevens

16.  The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

17.  A Summer Night, Robert Hillyer

18.  September, Annette Wynne

19.  Early Autumn, Edward Dowden

20. In August, Ethelwyn Wetherald

Source: Blogger, "Stats" 

September / Annette Wynne

September

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!

~~
Annette Wynne (1889-1952)

from For Days and Days: A year-round treasury of child verse, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Jonathan Billinger, Golden October, 2016. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

[October]

Annette Wynne biography

Early Autumn / Edward Dowden

Early Autumn

If while I sit flatter'd by this warm sun
Death came to me, and kissed my mouth and brow,
And eyelids which the warm light hovers through,
I should not count it strange. Being half won
By hours that with a tender sadness run,
Who would not softly lean to lips which woo
In the Earth's grave speech? Nor could it aught undo
Of Nature's calm observances begun
Still to be here the idle autumn day.
Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr'd
Where'er they fell; the tired wind hither call
Her gentle fellows; shining beetles stray
Up their green courts; and only yon shy bird
A little bolder grow ere evenfall.

~~
Edward Dowden (1843-1913)
from Poems, 1876

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Dowden biography

  Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), Early Autumn, ca. 1866. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Summer's End / Robert Hillyer

Summer's End

And now at sunset, ripples flecked with gold
Leap lightly over the profounder blue;
The wind is from the north, and days are few
That still divide us from the winter cold.
O, it was easy in the morning dew
To make the vow that never should be old,
But now at dusk the words are not so bold,—
Thus have I learned. How fares the hour with you?

A heron rises from the trembling sedge,
His vigil at an end. Mine too is done.
A late sail twinkles on the watery edge,
And up the shore lights flicker one by one.
Seasons will change before tomorrow’s sun,
So speaks the dune-grass on the windy ledge.

~~

Robert Hillyer (1895-1961)

from The Hills Give Promise, 1923

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Robert Hillyer biography

Texel - Nature Reserve De Muy - ICE Photo compilation,

September 2010. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.