In England, September heralds the arrival of autumn, marking a transition. For centuries, the seasons have captivated the hearts and minds of poets, inspiring some of the most renowned works on history. This blog explores the poets who have captured the alluring charm of autumn, from Emily Bronte and Robert Frost to John Keats and William Wordsworth.
Image from Unplash
‘Fall Leaves’ Fall by Emily Bronte
‘Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away.’
Though best known for her novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte was also a poet. One of her many celebrated poems is ‘Fall leaves, Fall’, a beautiful piece about autumn. Though short, Bronte captures the essence of autumn and the changing seasons in her first line: 'Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away'. The repeated use of imperatives throughout the poem emphasises the dominance of autumn over the previous season. Bronte deliberately uses the falling leaves to symbolise death, while autumn represents the fleeting nature of the seasons and our human lives.
Image from Unplash
‘Autumn’ by John Clare
‘I love the fitful gust that shakes The casement all the day.’
John Clare was an English Romantic poet. His works often celebrated the natural world and the impact of industrialisation on rural life. In ‘Autumn’, he describes the wind as an elusive, unpredictable force, rushing through the landscape and shaking the leaves from the trees. Although autumn isn’t specially named, only appearing in the title, the poem conjures an autumnal atmosphere with its ‘faded leaves’, ‘shaking twig[s]’ and ‘fitful gust[s]’ of November wind.
Image from Unplash
‘The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost
‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.’
In this poem too, autumn is never mentioned by name. However, the ‘yellow wood’ described in the opening line clearly imagines the changing leaves of autumn. Frost, like Bronte before him, uses autumn to represent the transience of life. The entire poem is an extended metaphor, exploring what it means to be human. Faced with a choice between two paths, the narrator of this poem wonders which to take. His decision is only revealed at the end, where he claims it ‘made all the difference’. This poignant conclusion reminds readers to be brave about making the right choices.
Image from Unplash
‘To Autumn’ by John Keats
‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.’
‘To Autumn’ takes the form of an ode, a lyric poem written as an address to a particular subject. In this case, autumn is the subject and Keats uses his language to revere it. There is something alluring about the way he writes, capturing the softness of autumn with its ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’. Odes were traditionally meant to be sung and you can hear the lyric nature of this poem in alliterative phrases such as ‘winnowing winds’ and ‘barred clouds bloom’. This beautiful depiction of autumn conjures a tranquil atmosphere that lingers even after the poem has ended.
Image from Unplash
‘Autumn’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
‘Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside a-weary.’
In this beautiful poem, Longfellow glorifies autumn, describing its ‘pomp and pageant’ and ‘splendid’ scenery. His detailed language weaves a rich tapestry, portraying autumn as a vibrant season of ‘richest dyes’. He describes the ‘deep crimsoned’ leaves and ‘silver birch’, the ‘golden robin’ and ‘purple finch’, creating a rainbow of colour in the readers mind. Much like the other poets on this list, Longfellow uses autumn as a metaphor for mortality. His description of autumn as ‘a faint old man’ links the natural patterns of the seasons with the course of our human lives.
Image from Unplash
‘Autumn Fires’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
'From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!'
The simplicity of ‘Autumn Fires’ is quite striking when compared to Longfellow’s poem. His
short verses still capture the essence of autumn without an excess of adjectives. Stevenson often crafted his poems with a young audience in mind, and the short lines and rhyme scheme give this piece a sing-song feel. His final verse, beginning with the line ‘sing a song of
seasons’ highlights this lyricism, lending itself to be spoken (or even sung) out loud.
Image from Unplash
‘Sonnet 73’ by William Shakespeare
‘When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.’
'Sonnet 73' belongs to the Youth Sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets, all addressed to an unnamed young man. The Youth sonnets often contain romantic language and powerful imagery. In 'Sonnet 73', age, not youth, makes up the subject matter, though it too is addressed to the anonymous young man. Shakespeare draws parallels between mortality and the seasons, with the ‘yellow leaves’ and shaking branches representing the fragility of human life. It is a beautiful sonnet, typically Shakespearean in language and form and visually enchanting.
Image from Unplash
Autumn beauty
The classic poems discussed here all encapsulate the wild beauty of autumn, from the visual splendour of nature's bounty to the introspective contemplation of mortality and the passage of time. By engaging with these works, we can gain a greater understanding of the impact autumn has on human emotions and the creative expression it inspires.
Kommentare