Thomas Hood, 'Autumn'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Autumn

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;—
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noonday,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak-tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.

( The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard, )

By Thomas Hood

Immortal Autumn ~ Archibald MacLeish

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice  
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall  
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.
                                                                  Now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,  
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,  
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows  
Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:  
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn  
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves  
And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow  
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know  
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.  
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.