ELGIN-BORN Andrew Young - cleric and naturalist as well as poet - views the autumn scene with a wealth of telling detail in this sample from his Selected Poems of 1998 (Carcanet, £9.95).

AUTUMN MIST

So thick a mist hung over all,

Rain had no room to fall;

It seemed a sea without a shore;

The cobwebs drooped heavy and hoar

As though with wool they had been knit;

Too obvious mark for fly to hit!

And though the sun was somewhere else

The gloom had brightness of its own

That shone on bracken, grass and stone

And mole-mound with its broken shells

That told where squirrel lately sat,

Cracked hazel-nuts and ate the fat.

And sullen haws in the hedgerows

Burned in the damp with clearer fire;

And brighter still than those

The scarlet hips hung on the briar

Like coffins of the dead dog-rose;

All were as bright as though for earth

Death were a gayer thing than birth.