And I do love each scene to view...

Good morning!  Today I'm sharing a few pictures from our recent trip to a nearby state park.  Each year we honor our family fall picnic tradition  by packing books, our family kite, and games along with fried chicken, potato salad and pumpkin bars in the car and heading out in search of fall colors and an afternoon hike. 

Today's I'm sharing a few appropriate stanzas from John Clare's Autumn. If you would like to read the entire poem, you can find it here.  Friendly advice...the poem is LONG and the ending is dreary, so I chose a few of the more cheerful lines to accompany my pictures.  Thanks so much for stopping by and have a lovely day!

Autumn
John Clare
(from the Village Minstrel, 1821)

The summer-flower has run to seed,
And yellow is the woodland bough;
And every leaf of bush and weed
Is tipt with autumn’s pencil now

And I do love the varied hue,

And I do love the browning plain;

And I do love each scene to view,

That’s mark’d with beauties of her reign.

\

The woodbine-trees red berries bear,
That clustering hang upon the bower;
While, fondly lingering here and there,

Peeps out a dwindling sickly flower.

While, on a bank of faded grass,
Some artless maid the prize receives;
And kisses to the sun-tann’d lass,
As well as nuts, the shepherd gives.

My husband and I were high up in an observation tower when I realized we could see our shadows on the leaves far below...

Beneath a yellow fading tree,
As red suns light thee, Autumn-morn,
In wildest rapture let me see
The sweets that most thy charms adorn.

O while my eye the landscape views,
What countless beauties are display’d;
What varied tints of nameless hues, 
Shades endless melting into shade.

Autumn is such a lovely way to slip from summer into winter, don't you think?