An October Song: Clinton Scollard’s Tribute to Autumn’s Harvest and Love

October 13, 1895

Dearest reader,

On this day, the Omaha Daily Bee (Nebraska) delighted its readers with a borrowed jewel from the Ladies Home Journal—a poem by Clinton Scollard titled An October Song.

And what a song it is, brimming with the lush music of ripening orchards and golden woodlands.

There's a flush on the cheek of the pippin and peach,
And the first glint of gold on the bough of the beech; 

The bloom from the stem of the buckwheat is cut,
And there'll soon be a gap in the burr of the nut. 

The grape has a gleam like the breast of a dove. 
And the haw is as red as the lips of my love; 

While the hue of her eyes the blue gentian doth wear,
And the goldenrod glows like the gloss of her hair. 

Like bubbles of amber the hours float away
As I search in my heart for regrets for the May; 

Alas, for the spring and tho glamour thereof;
The autumn has won me the autumn and love.

Ah, can we not imagine it, dear gardeners?

The garden bowing under the opulent weight of the season, the fruits blushing as though they were maidens caught in some tender glance.

What a momentary splendor October confers, as though she herself were teasing summer’s departure with her jeweled mantle.

"The bloom from the stem of the buckwheat is cut,
And there'll soon be a gap in the burr of the nut."

Here the poet reminds us of harvest—of work done and work still to come. The nuts, the grains, the swollen fruits: nature’s ledger is being settled before our eyes.

Have you, reader, taken stock of your own garden's accounts this season?

What shall you store away, and what must you let go?

"The grape has a gleam like the breast of a dove.
And the haw is as red as the lips of my love;"

The imagery grows ever more intimate.

A garden in October is not merely a place of fruits and flowers—it becomes a mirror to the heart, a metaphor of love itself.

Gardeners, I ask you: how often has your own border, your own hedge, stirred feelings not of soil alone, but of spirit, memory, and desire?

What devotion to detail, what romance in observation!

Even weeds and wildflowers are elevated by the lover’s gaze.

Do you not agree that such lines inspire us to look again at our own plots—not just as plantings, but as portraits?

Who among us has not seen the likeness of a loved one mirrored unexpectedly in a bloom?

The poem concludes with autumn triumphant.

Is it not curious, dear reader, how often the gardener’s affections are divided—how we sigh for spring even as we thrill to fall?

Scollard dares to confess allegiance to autumn, choosing its fullness of fruit and love over the tender promises of May.

Would you, too, give your heart to October, that rich and steady paramour, or do your loyalties linger among spring’s frivolous blossoms?

Thus, an October Song—not merely a poem, but a reminder: every garden is a love story, and every season writes its verse upon us.

Shall we not turn the page with care?