Poetic Autumn Musings

The milder temperatures these days are a welcome change after the sweltering heat of summer. Ensconced in the Atlanta suburbs, we are on the threshold, eagerly waiting to drown in the autumn splendors that nature bestows every year. It is not too long until the green leaves turn red, brown, yellow, and orange and present a breathtaking sight!

What has autumn signified for mankind? It would be interesting to unravel and explore the different facets of the season by looking through a poetic lens.

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

To Autumn (1819) by John Keats is a testimony to the efficacy of poetic brilliance in stirring the mind’s eye. Autumn is addressed as the “Close bosom-friend” of the sun with both conspiring together to ripen the fruits and cause flowers to bloom.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

The season is also likened to a thresher sitting on a granary floor, a reaper in deep slumber in a grain field, a gleaner, and a cider maker. Keats creates a pretty autumn scene graced by loveliness, abundance, and gracious sunshine.

There is a feeling that the music of autumn is sweet enough in its own way, with no reason to yearn for the melodies of spring. A tinge of sadness does surface towards the end of the poem. There is a hint to the transience of anything earthly with a reference to the soft-dying day, the gnats mourning in a wailful choir, and swallows returning to their nests for the night.

As summer passes by…

A short poem, Autumn Fires (1885) by Robert Louis Stevenson notes the change from one season to another. The poet points out that the summer blooms that once spread a pleasant feeling exist no more. What is instead seen over the gardens and valleys is the cloud of smoke rising up from the bonfires lit in autumn.

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.

The poet however, has no regret. The thought that each season needs to be celebrated finds expression in the concluding stanza:

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

Letting autumn go

Comprising of two stanzas, Fall, leaves, fall (1846) is a short poem by Emily Brontë. The poet senses that “every leaf speaks bliss” to her. Yet there is an urgency to bid goodbye because she is restless for the winter which is her favorite season.

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day!
Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day

Reflections on loneliness 

Sarojini Naidu’s Autumn Song is essentially centered on the themes of loss and loneliness. Parallels are drawn between the fleeting beauty of autumn and the unfulfilled dreams in the poet’s life. 

The wind here is used as an agent of change. Broken dreams are compared to the fluttering leaves blown away forever by the wind:

My heart is weary and sad and alone,
For its dreams like the fluttering leaves have gone

Explaining autumn to a child

Contemporary American poet Maggie Smith offers a rather unique perspective of autumn. The tenderness of maternal warmth adorns her poem First Fall (2017).  Strapping her baby onto her chest, a mother walks in the park and talks to her child about all that she sees around her. She marvels at the beauty of the surroundings and is eager for her little one to know how the autumn landscape unfolds:

Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges

The concept of change is introduced when the mother says, “Soon I will have another season to offer you.” The poem concludes with the mother’s earnest desire for her child to embrace the loveliness around her as she says:

I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

A quote by Robert Frost explained, “Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words”. The spirit behind autumn has been described with precision through the fine aesthetics of poetry. In these autumn poems, maturity and artistry meet to gracefully lay bare the feelings and sentiments that have engulfed the human mind.