quotations about leaves
Ho! for the leaves that eddy down,
Crumpled yellow and withered brown,
Hither and yonder and up the street
And trampled under the passing feet;
Swirling, billowing, drifting by,
With a whisper soft and a rustling sigh,
Starting aloft to windy ways,
Telling the coming of bonfire days.
GRACE STRICKLER DAWSON
"Bonfire Days"
The rustling of the leaves is like a low hymn to nature.
JAMES ELLIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.
MARK LAWRENCE
Emperor of Thorns
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Indian Summer"
The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
"Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood"
Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.
ALBERT CAMUS
attributed, Visions from Earth
Happy, happy, happy for all that God hath done,
Glad of all the little leaves dancing in the sun.
ALFRED NOYES
Drake: An English Epic
One skeleton-leaf, white-ribbed, a last year's leaf,
Skipped in a paltry gust, whizzed from the dust,
Leapt the small dusty puddle; and sailing then
Merrily in the sunlight, lodged itself
Between two blossoms in a hawthorn tree.
That was the moment: and the world was changed.
With that insane gay skeleton of a leaf
A world of dead worlds flew to hawthorn trees,
Lodged in the green forks, rattled, rattled their ribs
(As loudly as a dead leaf's ribs can rattle)
Blithely, among bees and blossoms. I cursed,
I shook my stick, dislodged it. To what end?
Its ribs, and all the ribs of all dead worlds,
Would house them now forever as death should:
Cheek by jowl with May.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Dead Leaf in May"
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Woods in Winter"
What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, "It will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks, when autumn comes?" Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery sparks, upon the moss.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves.
HUMBERT WOLFE
P.L.M.: Peoples, Landfalls, Mountains
As seasons unravel ... I muse that, even though the tree has lost its leaves, it may be haunted by the memory of their warmth.
JADE CUTTLE
"A plate of poetry, please: Leaves and lovers", Varsity Online, May 23, 2016
I love the chill October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath your feet.
JEROME K. JEROME
"Silhouettes"
Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves,
O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds
A-mourning go?
JOHN BANISTER TABB
"Phantoms", Poems
O bring me a leaf from the Old Forest,
A token so sacred, O bring;
'Twill recall those bright scenes to remembrance,
Old friendships around it will cling.
JOHN D. COSSAR
"A Leaf From the Old Forest"
Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; yet God has made them part of oak; in so doing He has given us a lesson not to deny the stout-heartedness within, because we see the lightsomeness without.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
attributed, Guesses at Truth
So bright in death I used to say,
So beautiful through frost and cold!
A lovelier thing I know to-day,
The leaf is growing old,
And wears in grace of duty done,
The gold and scarlet of the sun.
MARGARET ELIZABETH SANGSTER
"A Maple Leaf"
The fall of leaves is an emblem of the decline of life.
R. TREVOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
We take it for granted that plants have green leaves for photosynthesis, but green vegetation may be a reflection of the solar spectrum on the Earth. Our sun is a G-class (yellow) star, which emits a peak spectrum in the visual range. Additionally, the Earth's atmosphere has a significant effect on the light reaching the ground, making it ideal for plants to absorb in blue or red. What if we discover a habitable planet around a different star? NASA and CalTech have already looked into this possibility. On a planet orbiting an F-class (yellow-white) star, which is somewhat hotter than the sun, photosynthesis will most likely concentrate on blue and green wavelengths, because that's where the energy peak will be. Leaves there will reflect mostly in yellow, orange, and red. It would be "fall" year-round, at least based on the coloration of Earth's vegetation.
STEVEN SPENCE
"Autumn Leaves: Last, Loveliest Smile", Got Science, October 27, 2015
Ah, the pretty whisperers! It was very well
When the leaves were thick and green, awhile ago--
Leaves are secret-keepers; but since the last leaf fell
There is nothing hidden from the eyes below.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
"Secrets", Verses