Although I am particularly fond of this tune, I did not fully appreciate the poem until we 
moved to Alaska. In the summer, where we lived, 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the sun 
would set every night but it would never get dark for about three months. The return of 
the stars was therefore a harbinger of the long winter nights to come. Arcturus seemed 
particularly prominent to me in the Spring and Autumn night skies. I would often find 
myself singing this song on the way home from Fairbanks as the stars came out, Arcturus 
moving ever closer to the horizon as winter set in.

ARCTURUS IN AUTUMN
Words by Sara Teasdale, music by James E. Nelson

When, in the gold October dusk, I saw you near to setting,
Arcturus, bringer of spring,
Lord of the summer nights, leaving us now in autumn,
Having no pity on our withering:

Oh then I knew at last that my own autumn was upon me,
I felt it in my blood,
Restless as dwindling streams that still remember
The music of their flood.

There in the thickening dark a wind-bent tree above me
Loosed its last leaves in flight --
I saw you sink and vanish, pitiless Arcturus,
You will not stay to share our lengthening night.