Autumn

Autumn is here, the year's growing older,

Evenings draw in, mornings are colder,

Bracken turns yellow, berries turn red

And the Sleepers are secretly making their beds.

No more at evening the flittermouse wheels,

But in belfries and hollow trees hangs by his heels,

The squirrel has gathered plump hazels and set them

In neat private hoards, where he'll mostly forget them.

The Dormouse in sunbeams, sits rubbing his nose,

And blinkily nodding off into a doze,

While the hedgehog by twilight, for such are his habits,

Spreads moss in a snug hole that once was a rabbit's.

Soon they will all of them cosily creep,

Into their bedrooms and tumble asleep,

Even the toad, now as plump as a mole,

Will decide he had better be Toad in a Hole.

The squirrel and dormouse will tuck in their toes,

And make their tails counterpanes over the nose,

While the slumbering hedgehog, since tail he has none,

Tucks his nose where his would be, if he had one.

Hardly they'll breathe, or their hearts beat at all,

Hardly their blood through their bodies will crawl,

Yet rain, frost or snowfall, still cosy and dry,

They will all slumber safely while Winter goes by.

Then, one soft day, they will dream of the sun,

And feel in their bones that the spring has begun,

And, lean but alive, they will waken and then

Nose off down the hedgerow on business again.

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I hope you like this poem. I copied it out of a book a long time ago and cannot remember who wrote it, and of course cannot now find the book!!!