September! We are moving into Autumn, fruit, grain harvest, swelling pumpkins … return to school, reluctant scholars yet glad to see their friends. remembering Oscar Wilde yesterday, here is the XVII Century English-speaking Welsh poet, Henry Vaughan, looking for the luxuries of out-of-season flowers and fruit. He’d find them today of course, rushed to us from around the world. But note his conclusion!
The tender vine in our garden suffered from the North’s cold wind last winter, but we have a few bunches of grapes swelling; are they to be food for humans or starlings?
Who the violet doth love, Must seek her in the flow'ry grove, But never when the North's cold wind The russet fields with frost doth bind. If in the spring-time—to no end— The tender vine for grapes we bend, We shall find none, for only—still— Autumn doth the wine-press fill. Thus for all things—in the world's prime— The wise God seal'd their proper time.
Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II.
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