The weather this week has been rather lovely although not overly warm, but the trees have been golden in the sunshine. This put me in mind of St Luke's Little Summer. This occurs on or around 18th October and refers to a period of warm weather occuring around the Feast of St Luke. In other words - summer's final fling.
There are many references to St Luke's Summer in novels and poetry. I first came across it in Miss Read's Village Diary - "since the October gale the weather has turned soft and warm. Mr Willet tells me it is St Luke's little summer".
There are many other references and two of my favourite are Vita Sackville West from The Garden:
Yet, for a moment, in these dying days,
St. Luke will bring his little Summer, when
Faith may restore the tired hearts of men,
Ready to doubt but readier to believe.
Oh sweet St. Luke, so happy to deceive!
Evangelist, he brushes with his pen
A golden light in strokes of golden rays
From Heaven fanning down upon the maize
Strewn through the dust-motes to the pheasants, in
The orchard where the yaffle and the jays
Streak a bright feather as they take to wing.
And as in February hints of Spring
Cozen us into courage, so this late
Golden revival, in a last reprieve,
May stay the hour to wait,
As in the shadows Death
Slides back the moving sword within the sheath.
and Norman Nicholson from Rock Face:
The low sun leans across the slanting field,
And every blade of grass is striped with shine
And casts its shadow on the blade behind,
And dandelion clocks are held
Like small balloons of light above the ground.
Beside the trellis of the bowling green
The poppy shakes its pepper-box of seed;
Groundsel feathers flutter down;
Roses exhausted by the thrust of summer
Lose grip and fall; the wire is twined with weed.
The soul, too, has its brown October days --
The fancy run to seed and dry as stone,
Rags and wisps of words blown through the mind;
And yet, while dead leaves clog the eyes,
Never-predicted poetry is sown.