October
It’s mid October. Days and nights grow steadily cooler. The early morn sees more and more leaves laying sleepily on the ground, with low-lying fog in yonder fields, like a blanket of warmth. It’s somehow sad to see, and yet, I know it’s part of the cycle of rebirth every year. I love this time of year. Magical, mystical and ethereal.
Looking for inspiration, I came across a lesser known author/poet whose story is quite interesting. And yes, inspiring. Elizabeth Orpha Hoyt. She was an American philosopher, author and poet who grew up in Athens, Ohio and who had such a thirst for knowledge. She was thought of as a true wonder. Elizabeth wrote poetry beginning as a child and wrote a volume of poetry by the time she was 15. What is truly amazing is how brilliant she was in her ability to comprehend metaphysical studies, mathematics and linguistics at such an early age. And yes, write poetry (100 – 200 poems) and publish articles and children’s books.
Quote from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
The quote reflects Jane’s own struggle to express herself and pursue her dreams in a society that expects women to be submissive and obedient. It seems quite apropos for Elizabeth Hoyt’s life.
Elizabeth’s poems are considered to have a great deal of tenderness of feeling, a genuine appreciation of the beautiful, and an overflowing sympathy with nature and humanity. The poem, entitled “October”, is one such poem:
Not Summer now, nor Winter yet;
Come walk with me awhile between.
The Year invites; almost Time waits,
As Autumn holds ajar her gates–
Her feast prepared; her welcome said;
The heavens with benedictions spread,
And all so courteous, fair and still,
The Season and the Guest who will
In cheerful leisure met.
Oh, who would miss it? or forget
The suns that rise, the suns that set;
The rustle of the crimsoning leaf;
The gush and murmur of the stream;
The thoughts we think, the dreams we
dream,
Those south-wind days–so bright so
brief–
Where many-hued on wood and sky,
And many-voiced to ear and eye,
October shifts the scene–
Nay, stands apart in splendor mild,
Nature’s serene, self-conscious child.
As when the soul, furnished with deeds
That men call good, and heaven approves,
No pride puts on, and makes no boast,
But gaining ever, still gives most–
So through the mouths October moves;
The Moon of Harvests on her front,
The fruitage of the round year’s care
Full-ripened in her generous air,
With gifts replete, as man with needs:
Passing, ’tis true,
And softly whispering, “So are you!”
But with a retrospect that fills
With well-earned joy life’s little day–
Swift-gliding to the West of Time,
So fast away!
And does Time wait?
October stand at Autumn’s gate?
Lo! now her watch-fires on the hills
Light the far vales; the woods illume.
A sudden radiance floods the air;
The skies a sudden glory wear;
In solemn pomp the heavens attend;
A moment, and the pageant’s o’er,
Where robed in royalty of old,
Goes down, in purple and in gold,
The month that was, and is no more.
“Is no more!” Our senses ty it,
Prove it false from bloom to core;
Where the festive word is spoken,
Fruits are served, and bread is broken–
There we meet it evermore.
Better still, our souls deny it–
Nature’s sweetest lesson learning–
As our footsteps, homeward turning,
Find the rains of dim November,
Cold and drear, begin to fall:
And its beauty, we remember;
Light the fire, and shut the door;
Best of all,
Hang up October on the wall.
~Elizabeth O. Sampson Hoyt Dec 1828 - Sep 1912
