Welcome, October

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 “The skies they were ashen and sober;        The leaves they were crispéd and sere—        The leaves they were withering and sere;  It was night in the lonesome October        Of my most immemorial year;  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,        In the misty mid region of Weir—  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,        In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.” (First stanza of “Ulalume” by Edgar Allen Poe)

Willy-nilly

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Into this Universe, and Why not knowing 

Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; 

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, 

I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

Stanza XXXII of “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” by Edward Fitzgerald (1809–1883)


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