Our last post highlighted the nostalgia many of us feel this time of year as we say goodbye to summer and prepare ourselves for the colder months ahead. Harriet Monroe’s short poem, “A Farewell,” continues that theme and offers us a blessing for this most wistful of seasons.

A Farewell

by Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)

Good-bye!—no, do not grieve that it is over,
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.

Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yes, love and all.
Glad was the living—blessed be the dying.
Let the leaves fall.