Poetry Sunday: An October Garden

Yesterday we observed the monthly Bloom Day meme. Let's follow that with a poem about the garden in autumn.

Christina Georgina Rossetti wrote of a garden that is on the wane as the last rosebud uncloses to autumn's "languid sun and rain." Even that last rose, "least and last of all," is still a rose and still smells sweet.

My garden, too, has begun its slow decline into what passes for winter here. In colder areas, the decline is swifter, more sudden. But it is the natural progression of things and we welcome it because the garden and the gardener need their rest.

An October Garden

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

In my Autumn garden I was fain
To mourn among my scattered roses;
Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn's languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June, 
Nor heard the nightingale in June.

Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
You are but coarse compared with roses:
More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.

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