Helen Hunt Jackson

A Calendar of Sonnets: September

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!
 The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung
 On wands; the chestnut’s yellow pennons tongue
 To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped
 In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;
 And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among
 The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung
 Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped
 The purple grape,—last thing to ripen, late
 By very reason of its precious cost.
 O Heart, remember, vintages are lost
 If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.
 Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy’s estate,
 Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!
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