This often quoted line is from a poem by the much-loved Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, familiar to everyone who has passed through the Irish school system. We in Ireland do not always have as long and as beautiful an Autumn as we have been blessed with in 2014. The balmy mild and calm weather that has followed a beautiful long warm dry summer has added to the Autumn Beauty that we are now enjoying. These are snaps taken over an hour or so this afternoon, which I hope you might enjoy
These beauties are in the hedgerow at The Pike, near Ardagh, Co Limerick
Trees in Autumn glory at Adare,Co Limerick
These butter-yellow Acacias light up the main street in Adare
I really like these russet beauties on the main street
Inside the town park, donated by the Dunraven family in the 1970s, there is a treasure trove of Autumn Beauty
And what a surprise to see these Autumn treasures! I love the tall toadstools, which I had not seen before.
Everywhere you look, Autumn lies in wait, so you need to look down too!
More in Adare town park
And finally, back in my own garden, a cherry wears her Autumn colours, bidding goodbye to the beautiful summer and Autumn that we have enjoyed!
The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B Yeats
‘The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
