Poem: “September,” Mary Coleridge

Now every day the bracken browner grows, 

    Even the purple stars 

    Of clematis, 

t    hat shone about the bars, 

Grow browner; and the little autumn rose 

    Dons, for her rosy gown, 

    Sad weeds of brown. 

Now falls the eve, and ere the morning sun, 

    Many a flower her sweet life will have lost, 

    Slain by the bitter frost, 

Who slays the butterflies also, one by one, 

    The tiny beasts 

    That go about their business and their feasts.