For some reason, although it had only thirty days the same as every year, September seemed an extra long month, full of nice things… and now, good heavens! It’s October! There are lots of family and friends who have birthdays in October, which although it is the tenth month of our calendar it was the eight month of the Roman calendar, hence its name. In Anglo-Saxon it was called Winterfylleþ (Winterfylleth) which means winter season as that was when they felt winter was beginning. I guess that is so, but to us we have, we hope, a lovely autumn between the end of summer and the cold and short days of winter. To Celtic people, the end of October was the festival of Samhain, which marks the end of harvest time and then, for them too, the beginning of winter.
Dylan Thomas wrote ‘Poem in October’, Louise Glück wrote ‘October’, and so did Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,Should waste them all.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long
Lois Elsden 