Despite its rather autumnal colours on the cover I have always associated Songs From The Wood with late Spring and Summer. Most likely because of lines like
“Let me bring you love from the field:
poppies red and roses filled with summer rain”
and
“but we accept your invitation, and we bring you Beltane's flower.
For the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track.”
or
“And the long grass blows in the evening cool.
And August's rare delight may be April's fool.”
and
“Deep red are the sun-sets in mystical places.
Black are the nights on summer-day sands.”
I admit that there are certain references to Winter as well, but they seem to have the purpose of highlighting or contrasting the “Summer” topic. For instance
“Join in black December's sadness,
lie in August's welcome corn.
Stir the cup that's ever-filling
with the blood of all that's born.
But the May Day is the great day, sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did lay
will heed this song that calls them back.”
And although Fire At Midnight has a wintry feel to it I can’t detect anything about Winter in the lyrics. And to light a fire at midnight in August in the highlands of Scotland is not that unusual. In fact, I have switched on the gas heating in July when I was living in Birmingham (West Midlands, not Alabama) a couple of years ago.
Of course, Jack-In-The-Green is the guardian “of all things that grow, during the dim and dark winter months” but again, as the preserver of all things that grow, he points towards spring.
Heavy Horses on the other hand is, I think, quite ambiguous. There are references to autumn like
“An October's day, towards evening”
but there is, of course, Moths with the lines
“And the first Moths of summer
suicidal came.”
and
“Dipping and weaving --- flutter
through the golden needle's eye
in our haystack madness. Butterfly-stroking
on a Spring-tide high.”
And although there is no mentioning of seasons in Rover, or only in a slightly different manner (“As the Robin craves the summer”), I always thought this song musically more on the spring side. The twinkling of Martin’s guitar, the string arrangements, there all very forward going, as if to set off, as the Rover indeed does, but so does spring.
But you are right. Most songs of Heavy Horses are set in an autumnal mood. I guess since the album was released in spring, March or April 1978, I always listen to it with that spring of 1978 in mind.
There is indeed no reason to discuss Stormwatch. The album has winter written all over it – with the odd exception:
“Down steep and narrow lanes I see the chimneys smoking
above the golden fields ... know what the robin feels
in his summer jamboree.
All elements agree
in sweet and stormy blend ---
midwife to winds that send me home.”
Well, I hope I didn’t bore you to death with my remarks, after all, it is November and the suicide rate rises in the Northern hemisphere.
KH
Did we have a doubt? 
