Autumn Books

The Harvest Moon

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes
And roofs of villages, on woodland crests
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes
Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!
Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,
With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!
All things are symbols: the external shows
Of Nature have their image in the mind,
As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;
The song-birds leave us at the summer’s close,
Only the empty nests are left behind,
And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow captures the desertion of summer so beautifully – the leaves, the harvest moon, the migration of the birds, the seeds falling in abundance as we walk. Autumn is upon us. So as we start to hunker down and wrap up, here are some autumnal treasures to help you enjoy this season. Perhaps alongside a mug of hot chocolate?!