This autumn I find it so hard to chose between so many different aesthetics to embody; shall I be Poe’s mournful bride with face pale as the moon, dressed in long gowns in white or dusty purple, instead of pearls my neck adorned with invisible kisses; shall I dress as Miss Havisham in a wedding dress, and put on a fragrance of wilted roses and dust, with spiderwebs on my hands instead of lace gloves; or wear my hair in braids with bows and roam the chambers of my castle as a ghost of a Victorian teenage girl, or simply curl my hair and take a porcelain doll instead of a purse and be a child-vampire for all eternity; or a Biba girl dressed in many shades of violet, brown and mauves; or a Pre-Raphaelite muse with flower woven in my hair, my cheeks rosy as ripe apples and lips as pink as rosebuds. Oh, the agony of choice! Is that what Donovan meant when he sang “So many different people to be, that it’s strange, so strange….” in “Season of the Witch”? Anyhow, I instructed my sweet darling bats who reside in the tower of my castle to weave a long veil and a white dress for me, and I kindly asked the butterflies to search the woods and the meadows and make a flower-crown from all the nature’s richness they find; last wild flowers, yellow leaves, rose hips, acorns and birch twigs. Now the only thing left to do is to ask the autumn wind to braid my hair…
A whimsical poem called “Autumn” by Emily Dickinson:
The morns are meeker than they were—
The nuts are getting brown—
The berry’s cheek is plumper—
The Rose is out of town.
The Maple wears a gayer scarf—
The field a scarlet gown—
Lest I should be old fashioned
I’ll put a trinket on.
Picture found here.
Picture found here.
Picture found here.
Picture found here.
Byron's Muse 