A man stands in the late autumn sun, feeling its warmth on a south-facing wall as November begins. He marvels at how kind the sun is to nearly everything it touches—stones, animals, people—though it never thaws the snow. The scene is vivid and a little bittersweet: a starling shakes a damson branch, scattering fruit and leftover raindrops, and the bird’s whistle reminds him of swallows that are long gone. This moment feels impossibly beautiful, but his mind starts drifting toward other months. He realizes he’s felt this exact rush of gratitude in every season, each day’s sun seeming unbeatable in its own way. The truth is, he would always say the same thing—there’s nothing like today’s sun—but only because he’s alive to feel it. The mood is both tender and elegiac, a quiet reminder that such moments are precious precisely because they won’t last.
There's Nothing Like the Sun — Summary
THERE'S nothing like the sun as the year dies, Kind as it can be, this world being made so, To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies, To all things that it touches except snow, Whether on mountain side or street of town. The south wall warms me: November has begun, Yet never shone the sun as fair as now While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough With spangles of the morning's storm drop down Because the starling shakes it, whistling what Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot That there is nothing, too, like March's sun, Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's, Or January's, or February's, great days: And August, September, October, and December Have equal days, all different from November. No day of any month but I have said-- Or, if I could live long enough, should say-- "There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day" There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.