A lengthening loveliness September holds,
With the soft laughters of her snowy cloud
Breaking upon tranquillities of blue:
This was the month that gave Our Lady birth
To bear a son to save a sorrowing world:
The Fructidor of France, when mellow fruits
Brimmed all the golden air with scents of wine,
And hung like yellow lanterns in the boughs,
Or berried, purpling on the green hillside,
Half cloaked in leaves, shy of the seeking wains
That piled the luscious bunches for the vats
To make the solace of the citizen:
When housewives marked the apples on the tree
For future kegs of cider, and brown boys
Marked, too, which fruits hung highest to the wall,
Freebooters, keen as sparrows on the hunt
To taste ripe apples without paying dues!
And here, what was their autumn is our spring:
And sweet she is, remembering winter days.
This beryl-sandalled, rose-crowned month of ours!
The fragile blossoms of her maiden breasts
Are fain to comfort, and her gentle feet
Press unsuspected spices from the flowers,
And in her voice there is the cry of birds
Holding the pleadings of a mating song!
First published in The Australasian, 17 September 1921
