October is the month of both National Poetry Day and World Mental Health Day.

In recognition of this, we're taking a few mindful moments to indulge in a selection of Autumnal prose.

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges;

The crumpling of cat-ice and snow down wood-rides, narrow lanes and every street causeway;

Rustling through a wood or rather rushing, while the wind halloos in the oak-toop like thunder;

The rustle of birds' wings startled from their nests or flying unseen into the bushes;

The whizzing of larger birds overhead in a wood, such as crows, puddocks, buzzards;

The trample of robins and woodlarks on the brown leaves. and the patter of squirrels on the green moss;

The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on the hazel branches as they fall from ripeness;

The flirt of the groundlark's wing from the stubbles – how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings, when the
dew flashes from its brown feathers.