A Poem for October

Welcome October!
The beautiful poem below, “October,” is written by Robert Frost. In it, the author urges nature to slow down before the leaves fall and the real chilly weather begins.

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874.
Following the death of his father, when he was 11, his family moved to Massachusetts. He began writing poetry in high school and went on to study at Dartmouth and Harvard though he did not finish college at either. His first published poem, My Butterfly, appeared in New York’s The Independent in 1894.
He worked as a teacher, cobbler, newspaper editor and farmer.
In fact, he was a farmer poet.
He owned a small, 18-acre farm in Derry, New Hampshire. He would milk cows at midnight in order to stay up late writing poetry, and not have to get up too early.
Ultimately selling his unsuccessful farm and moving to England in 1912, a time when thousands of people were abandoning farms due to industrialization. Towns in the area started “Old Home Days” celebrations (a tradition practiced today), inviting former residents to spend a week of summer back “home” to experience the best of rural life.
There he published his first collection.
He returned to the U.S. in 1915 and by the 1920s had published several collections and had become one of the most popular poets in the country.
Deeply rooted in place, his poems often embodied rural New England, and he would ultimately win four Pulitzer prizes for his poetry.
Many of his poems, including “October”, reflect his love of nature but also seem to speak to that loss of old-time American country values.
He went on to serve as a college professor at various institutions and later was called upon to recite a poem at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy.
Robert Frost died in 1963.

“October” by Robert Frost
(from A Boy’s Will, 1913)

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

We wish you an amazing October!