Quote of the Day (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, on ‘Autumn, Heralded by the Rain’)

“Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain,
  With banners, by great gales incessant fanned,
  Brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand,
  And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!”—American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), “Autumn,” originally published in his The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845), reprinted in American Poetry, The Nineteenth Century: Volume One—Freneau to Whitman, edited by John Hollander (Library of America, 1993)

 The rain-preceded fall that Longfellow evokes here arrived Monday and yesterday, courtesy of the remnants, up here in the Northeast, of Hurricane Delta. Leaves have not changed color very much yet, but many arrive lie in profusion on the ground already—and that number is certain to grow shortly.

(The image accompanying this post shows the Charles River in Massachusetts, a short walk from Longfellow's home in Cambridge. I took this picture while visiting the area 12 years ago.)