Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE TO AUTUMN, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE TO AUTUMN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Season of gusty days and cloudy nights
Subject(s): Autumn; Fall


SEASON of gusty days and cloudy nights,
The wind which showers wine apples to the ground
Blows at midday the long, pale, lunar lights
O'er weedy fields with melancholy sound.
Summer has gone, but she has left a show
Of downy clouds against the autumn sky,
Which the chill breezes chafe until they glow -
Ghosts of that luxury
Which now is by.
The golden trees against a sky of June
Seem like a life that is too soon grown gray;
Through smothering clouds the large autumnal moon
Rolls argently her undiminished way.
The wonder of night's bright processional
Abates not with the fading of the flowers,
Still glorious on all the earth doth fall -
But for those withered bowers
The pain is ours.
Here in my garden all the rich repose,
The silence and the trance of summer eves
If spring and summer be thy mask, O year,
Which falls in autumn, leaving hideous
The thing we deemed was to our being dear,
Then life may not be that it seems to us
In yout - but sometime may reveal -
When the worn heart the shock can scarcely bear
A countenance to make the spirit reel,
On reefs of keen
To perish there.
Ah, many a time and oft on nights like this
The whip-poor-will has sent abroad her song
From depths of anguish and from heights of bliss.
Now is it fancy? But methought along
The withered fringes of the tangled grass
A few belated crickets sent a shrill
Of hesitating song - this, too, must pass
Their little voices still
On mead and hill.
The night wind rises and the clouds which spume
Dark from the faint and starrylighted west
Are edged with fire against their heavy gloom.
Tis time that I should seek the thoughtless rest
Which day denies - much that we deeply prize
Doth stir the mind's reflections and awake
The pains which else had slumbered - in such wise
Rich, fruitful autumn, dear, for thine own sake
Through thy most fair disguise
We see Death's eyes.





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