Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FONTAINEBLEAU (AUTUMN), by SARA TEASDALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FONTAINEBLEAU (AUTUMN), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Interminable palaces front on the green parterres
Last Line: Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.
Alternate Author Name(s): Filsinger, Ernest B., Mrs.
Subject(s): Autumn; Fontainebleau, France; Seasons; Fall


Interminable palaces front on the green parterres
And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral
Glide down the gilded stairs;
The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel-taps
That long ago were theirs.

But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine
The geometric gardens are desolately gay;
The crimson and scarlet and rose-red dahlias
Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way
With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis,
On a lost October day.

The aisles of the garden lead into the forest,
The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves;
Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover,
But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves,
Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.





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