Autumnal verses for National Poetry Day!

Happy National Poetry Day!

Established by Forward Arts Foundation, National Poetry Day commemorates the the joy and community we can find from sharing and exchanging poetry. To celebrate, we’re sharing some of our favourite autumnal verses and cosy words from Batsford’s latest and upcoming poetry books.

Autumn Fires

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

From A Happy Poem to Start Every Day Ed. by Jane McMorland Hunter

The Western Sun Withdraws

James Thornton (1700–1748)

The western sun withdraws the shorten’d day;
And humid Evening, gliding o’er the sky,
In her chill progress, to the ground condensed
The vapours throws. Where creeping waters ooze,
Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along
The dusky-mantled lawn. Meanwhile the moon
Full-orb’d, and breaking through the scatter’d clouds,
Shows her broad visage in the crimson’d east.
Turn’d to the sun direct, her spotted disk,
Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend,
And caverns deep, as optic tube descries,
A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again,
Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day.
Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,
Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.
Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild
O’er the sky’d mountain to the shadowy vale,
While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam,
The whole air whitens with a boundless tide
Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. 

From A Nature Poem for Every Autumn Evening Ed. by Jane McMorland Hunter

Haunted Houses

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

From A Poem to Read Aloud for Every Day of the Year Ed. by Liz Ison

Love is Enough: The Music

William Morris (1834–1896)

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

From Poetry of Love for Every Day of the Yearg Ed. by Jane McMorland Hunter

A Happy Poem to Start Every Day, A Nature Poem for Every Autumn Evening and A Poem to Read Aloud for Every Day of the Year are all available to order online and from all good bookshops. Poetry of Love for Every Day of the Year, publishing 7 November 2024 is available to pre-order online.

Explore our full poetry collection here.

Illustrations by Debby Powell