An Autumn Rain-Scene by Thomas Hardy.

Well, that's summer gone. It's dull and grey and cold and still.

Keats' writes of sumptuous autumn days of mellow fruitfulness, but they don't really exist. With autumn comes a hint of unease, of threat, of better-take-a-coat, of have-you-seen-my-woolly-hat-I-left-around-somewhere-in-the-spring? That sense of warmth (if any) being fleeting.

All this will tell you that I am basically a county person, by which I mean someone whom the weather affects in practical ways and who is enraged by the very idea of boots made of sheepskin (how are they going to fare in the mud!).

Thomas Hardy was a country person, too. 

You can tell.

There trudges one to a merry-making
With a sturdy swing
On whom the rain comes down.

To fetch the saving medicament
Is another bent,
On whom the rain comes down.

One slowly drives his herd to the stall
Ere ill befall,
On whom the rain comes down.

This bears the missives of life and death
With quickening breath
On whom the rain comes down.

One watches for signals of wreck or war
From hill afar
On whom the rain comes down.

No care if he gains a shelter or none,
Unhired moves on,
On whom the rain comes down.

And another knows nought of its chilling fall
Upon him at all,
On whom the rain comes down.


October 1904

Word To Use Today: chill. This word comes from the Old English ciele, and goes right back to the Latin gelidus, icy.