September 2026

Autumn Evening, Matsuo Basho ' Autumn evening- A crow on a bare branch'

This month we feature Autumn poems, poems from our 40 poems for 40 years leaflet and London Poems

Poems on the Underground 40 Poems for 40 Years Leaflet

Listen to all the poems in the Poems on the Underground 40 Poems for 40 Years leaflet

Autumn Poems on the Underground

Ode to the West Wind by P. B. Shelley 'O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes; O Thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear! '

from To Autumn, John Keats ' Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells.'

from Autumn Journal, Louis MacNeice ‘September has come, it is hers Whose vitality leaps in the autumn, Whose nature prefers Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace . . .’

Elizabeth Bishop Song 'Summer is over upon the sea. The pleasure yacht, the social being, that danced on the endless polished floor, stepped and side-stepped like Fred Astaire, is gone, is gone, docked somewhere ashore. The friends have left, the sea is bare that was strewn with floating, fresh green weeds. Only the rusty-sided freighters go past the moon's marketless craters and the stars are the only ships of pleasure.'

Symphony in Yellow by Oscar Wilde, 1998 Poems on the Underground poster 'An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly, And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored against the shadowy wharf, And, like a yellow silken scarf, The thick fog hangs along the quay. The yellow leaves begin to fade And flutter from the Temple elms, And at my feet the pale green Thames Lies like a rod of rippled jade.'

from To Autumn by John Keats ' Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.'

from Mutabilitie by Edmund Spenser (1552-99) ' Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad, As though he joyed in his plentious store, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad That he had banisht hunger, which to-fore Had by the belly oft him pinched sore. Upon his head a wreath that was enrold With eares of corne of every sort he bore: And in his hand a sickle he did holde, To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold. '

In a Loaning by Seamus Heaney Spoken for in autumn, recovered speech Having its way again, I gave a cry: ‘Not beechen green, but these shin-deep coffers Of copper-fired leaves, these beech boles grey.’ Seamus Heaney Reprinted by permission of Faber from District and Circle (2006) Loaning: a lane (Ulster-Scots) boles: tree trunks

40 Poems for 40 Years

I am Raftery the Poet by Lady Augusta Gregory read by Ian Duhig

What is Truth by Louis MacNeice read by Nick Makoha

Stationery, Agha Shahid Ali ' The moon did not become the sun. It just fell on the desert in great sheets, reams of silver handmade by you. The night is your cottage industry now, the day is your brisk emporium. The world is full of paper. Write to me. '

Stationery by Agha Shahid Ali read by Imtiaz Dharker

Honesty by Kit Wright read by Brian O’Connor

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats (1865 - 1939) Poems on the Underground 1993 'Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'

Maura Dooley reads He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

Dew, Kwame Dawes ' This morning I took the dew from the broad leaf of the breadfruit tree, and washed the sleep from my eyes.

Dew read by Kwame Dawes

To Emilia V - by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory - Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed - And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on... Manuscript reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Library University of Oxford, MS. Shelley Adds. e.8, p.154 Poems on the Underground

Music when soft voices die by P.B. Shelley read by Linda Anderson

The Present by Michael Donaghy Poems on the Underground 2001 ' For the present there is just one moon, though every level pond gives back another .But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon, perceived by astrophysicist and lover ,is milliseconds old. And even that light's seven minutes older than its source. And the stars we think we see on moonless nights are long extinguished. And, of course, this very moment, as you read this line, is literally gone before you know it. Forget the here-and-now. We have no time but this device of wantonness and wit. Make me this present then: your hand in mine, and we'll live out our lives in it.'

The Present by Michael Donaghy read by Patience Agbabi

John Anderson My Jo by Robert Burns read by John Glenday

Gavin Ewart , A 14 year old Convalescent Cat in the Winter ' I want him to have another living summer, to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre- because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer, is what makes an idle cat un tout petit peu ivre-'

A 14-Year-Old Convalescent Cat in the Winter read by Gavin Ewart

London Fields, Michael Rosen ‘Evening falls between the trees The drumming for Ghana fills the leaves’

London Fields written and read by Michael Rosen

Green the land of my poem, Mahmoud Darwish ‘Green the land of my poem is green and high Slowly I tell it slowly with the grace of a seagull riding the waves on the book of water I bequeath it written down to the one who asks to whom shall we sing when salt poisons the dew?’

Green the land of my poem by Mahmoud Darwish read by John Glenday

The place where we are right, Yehuda Amichai ' From the place where we are right flowers will never grow in the spring. the place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard'

The place where we are right by Yehuda Amichai read by Imtiaz Dharker

ONE ART by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79) 'The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. - Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. '

Elizabeth Bishop One Art read by Ruth Fainlight

The Meaning of Existence, Les Murray ' Everything except language knows the meaning of existence. Trees, planets, rivers, time know nothing else.'

The Meaning of Existence by Les Murray read by Linda Anderson

London Poems on the Underground

London Poems on the Underground From Jerusalem, William Blake. The fields from Islington to Marylebone, To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood,

London Poems on the Underground Go where we may, Thomas Moore. Go where we may, rest where we will, Eternal London haunts us still.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 ,William Wordsworth 2009 Poems on the Underground poster 'Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty; This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!'

London Poems on the Underground After the Lunch, Wendy Cope. On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes, The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.

London Poems on the Underground Sweet Thames Flow Softly, Ewan MacColl. I met my girl at Woolwich Pier, beneath a big crane standing.

In the Heart of Hackney, for Aidan Andrew Dun by Sebastian Barker Poems on the Underground 2007 poster ' Behold, a swan. Ten houseboats on the Lee. A cyclist on the towpath. Gentle rain. A pigeon in a white apple - blossoming tree. And through the Marsh the rumble of a train. Two courting geese waddle on the bank Croaking. A man unties his boat. Police cars howl and whoop. And vast and blank The rain cloud of the sky is trampled underfoot. Behold, a dove. And in Bomb Crater Pond Fat frogs ignore the rain. Each trembling rush signals like a wand Earthing the magic of London once again. In the heart of Hackney, five miles from Kentish Town, By Lammas Lands the reed beds are glowing rich and brown '.Sebastian Barker Reprinted by permission of Enitharmon Press from Damnatio Memoriae: Erased from Memory (2004)

Poems from August 2026