OCTOBER 
That time of year . . . 
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
In me thou seest 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. 
Sonnets Ixxiii. 
I N this month the artist Nature completes her 
work of rendering the foliage of tree and flower 
resplendent in its death; lavish indeed is her hand 
with every shade of yellow, brown, and red, until 
the masses of elm-trees stand up upon their back¬ 
ground of blue, as though wrought in molten gold, 
while away in the far distance the hills shade to 
purple and the deepest blues under the mellowing 
autumnal vapours. 
Two or three flowers come forth to tell us the frost 
and sun are not yet here; the pink hue of the 
saffron, the gold of the marigold, and the honey-laden 
ivy, all blossom this month, as, too, does the clover, 
the honey-stalks of the poet, which, indeed, has been 
blossoming for many months past. A strange plant 
is the saffron (Crocus sotivus , L.), largely cultivated in 
England in Shakespeare’s time, but when introduced 
first is difficult to say. So important, however, was its 
cultivation that it has given the name to an Essex 
town. Saffron Walden, and to Saffron Hill in London. 
7—2 [ 99 ] 
