Fall for Poetry

Each year around Labor Day, I begin longing for wool sweaters, hot tea, fuzzy blankets, and the other cozy comforts of fall. While the sweltering heat is lingering here in Washington, D.C., we can still get into the spirit of the autumn season. At the National Endowment for the Arts, that can only mean one thing: a collection of fall-themed poetry!

Check our our selections below, including some poems for those of you who aren't ready to let go of summer quite yet. Be sure to let us know your favorite over on our X (Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram! (Click on the name of the poem to read each poem in its entirety.)

"Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;/ Lengthen night and shorten day;/ Every leaf speaks bliss to me,/ Fluttering from the autumn tree." From "Fall, Leaves, Fall" by Emily Brontë.

"It feels cruel. Something in me isn’t ready/ to let go of summer so easily. To destroy/ what I’ve carefully cultivated all these months./ Those pale flowers might still have time to fruit." From "September Tomatoes" by Karina Borowicz.

"Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,/ This autumn morning! How he sets his bones/ To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet/ For the ripple to run over in its mirth." From "Among the Rocks" by Robert Browning.

"Nature’s first green is gold,/ Her hardest hue to hold./ Her early leaf’s a flower;/ But only so an hour." From "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost.

"In the deep fall/ don’t you imagine the leaves think how/ comfortable it will be to touch/ the earth instead of the/ nothingness of air and the endless/ freshets of wind?" From "Song for Autumn" by Mary Oliver.

"Snow would be the easy/ way out—that softening/ sky like a sigh of relief/ at finally being allowed/ to yield. No dice." From "November for Beginners" by Rita Dove.