November trees above Crowdicote in Derbyshire.
Autumn: A Dirge
THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the Year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black, and gray;
Let your light sisters play—
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.*
For two very different poetical views of Autumn, see November by Thomas Hood and To Autumn by John Keats.
Précis
Shelley’s poem on Autumn sees the season as the dying of the Year. He therefore calls the more serious-minded months, from November to May, to the funeral, to walk with her to the grave, to watch at her sepulchre, and to make her grave green with their tears. (48 / 60 words)
