Summer fades

I have written earlier of belladonna, ginger lily and firewheel which herald the arrival of autumn. In the meanwhile the drying heads of hydrangea hang around for months to whisper of summer past.

Photo: Hydrangea in autumn
(not an Australian native plant)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? by William Shakespeare
“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”