Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LAST OF AUTUMN, by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: From cloudy shapes of trees that cluster the hills Last Line: And cash upon his garden palisades. Alternate Author Name(s): Blunden, Edmund Subject(s): Autumn; England; Landscape; Seasons; Fall; English | ||||||||
FROM cloudy shapes of trees that cluster the hills The calm blue morning into brightness climbs; And joy unhoped-for holds us hushed, and grace Lures love again to coigns whence the long vales Lie beautiful; that to my watch-tower come I haunt an hour, I warm to radiance too, By oaks that seem to kindle with the dawn. But near his noon the sun sheds dizzy light, And burning boughs burn with the dawn of death. Shorn empty fields! where yet the eye discerns A harvest home; look how the expanses point To what the crowded season scorned, to stubs That hold afield their outlaw solitude, The mandrakes of the farms; see grouping sheep Dapple the broad pale green, nabbing or resting. Haystacks and hurdles gleam for honour now And troughs and hovels in the lonely spaces Rejected once are headstones in each corner. Now once again the heart that long had feasted On revel of song and wing, then long had dimmed Its airy pleasure, cannot let a bird Chance by but counts him into memory's tribe. For there the witty jay laughs; here on waves Invisible ripples the linnet, gross rooks gabble, Or pheasant in his gaudy coat clangs past. These are the riches of our poverty, And all is peopled, though so few are there. When sometimes wells a springing music from The belt of pines, then the glad moment cries "The nightingale," nor that same little bird, Who now in Abyssinia claps his wings, Might grieve to own the clear recalling call. Then, senses, quicken, for it is not long -- Though slowly flow the gentle shadows over. Ivy with wasp and hornet buzzes still, Blue glittering flies are sunning on the stones, And the hives among the nettles' chalky flowers Are toiling; welcome, wayside thistles' crown, And rare-grown daisy in the meadow, shine, Though your pale cheeks have lost their lovely red. But the wind that frets the old and clinging leaves Arises deep, the very dirge and knell Of this doomed dream; And sets the weazel, where she hangs and dries To skin and bone, still with her whiskered snarl, A-swaying on the barren sloe-tree's thorn. For slow and sure comes change, and in the mass Of time how swift! Look down the glade and know The timber felled, the vast too-cumbrous branch Fallen, by the pillar of white that lightning left. The village grandsires knew another glade. This day so seeming-still, so patient-paced Will drop down precipice darkness to its grave, The whirlpooled past, the legion roar of night Rend the tired world and leave it to its winter: Whose turbulent angers and fierce siege shall die When newness comes to the birth. But who may tell When spring shall be again? and if these eyes Should then be shut to the brightness of her coming? So for her phantom violets I'll not lose These rich, these poor, these fading glowing lulls Nor drown my joy in boding. Better it were To be dull Thrift, than squander thus this day: Dull Thrift, who now has sown his mite of land, Has thrashed his corn and beans, and where the dew's Quicksilver bubbles lodge and shine all day In the cabbage leaves, and the last lady-bird Wafts her bright rosy way, leans pencilling coombs And cash upon his garden palisades. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NINETEEN FORTY by NORMAN DUBIE GHOSTS IN ENGLAND by ROBINSON JEFFERS STAYING UP FOR ENGLAND by LIAM RECTOR STONE AND FLOWER by KENNETH REXROTH THE HANGED MAN by KENNETH REXROTH ENGLISH TRAIN COMPARTMENT by JOHN UPDIKE ALMSWOMEN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |
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