The red ash berries strewed the ground; the birds saw to that, finding pleasure in breaking them off with a knowing jerk of the head and not a bit from hunger; the convolvulus, nasturtium and canariensis were flinging themselves in wild confusion; there was a kind of riot even among the flowers and weeds in the long border. A few roses, especially the good old "Gloire," were giving a little after-show, but a touch of finality had come to my garden, and when a hush passed over it, broken only by an early falling leaf, I knew autumn had come, and I scarcely paused to say good-bye to my first summer's gardening, so eager was I for all that autumn meant in the way of work for the future.
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness."
"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
So said George Eliot, and with all due reverence for her opinion, my soul would fly in the opposite direction, seeking the spring. If the autumn led straight on to spring I could love it more, but through its stillness I hear the winter blast; its gorgeous colouring scarce hides the baring boughs; day by day death lays a withering hand on flower and tree; day by day the sun runs quicker to its golden resting-place. Have you ever noticed how great a difference there is between the sun's summer and winter march across the heavens? Note the tree behind which he sinks in June and then again in November. A whole third of the heavens separates the two; and what does that not mean to us of lack in light and warmth? "Ah! would that the year were always May." And yet there are days, such days of perfect beauty that the year could never spare them. They come in early autumn, and it is as though a recording angel passed, so sweet, so solemn is the hush, the pause, with which Nature holds her breath and listens as she lays open her store of harvest to the "Well done" of the voiceless blessing.
And then, the blessed rest-day over, she turns about. "To work!" seems to be the order. "Away with these old flowers! No more need for pod-making; wither up the annuals, cut down the perennials, stop those busy youngsters and their growing process for a bit, shake off the leaves, they will come in useful later on, but pile them up now and let the children scuttle through them with happy feet, and have a good clear-out before you go to sleep and wake up again in the springtime--'the merry, merry springtime.' Away, you birds, and look out for yourselves those of you who stay; get your nests ready and your stores safely housed, my small friends of fur and feather, for my work is now to purge and to winnow, to try and to test, and woe betide the weaklings!" So the wind, Dame Nature's mighty broom-maiden, prepares her best besom, and there is soon a thorough good house-cleaning, to the great discomfort of the inhabitants.