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Fall Poetry
Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being . . .—Percy Bysshe Shelley
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compiled by David Johnson
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No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face;
—John Donne (1572–1631) "Elegy IX: The Autumnal"
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The acrid scents of autumn,
Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930)
"Dolor of Autumn," Amores (1916)
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Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)
"Cornhuskers," Falltime (1918)
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There is music in the meadows, in the air–
Autumn is here;
Skies are gray, but hearts are mellow,
—William Stanley Braithwaite, (1878–1962)
"A Lyric of Autumn," Lyrics of Life and Love (1904)
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Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind,
That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—
—Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)
"Break of Day," Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)
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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
—John Keats (1795–1821)
"CCLV Ode to Autumn," The Golden Treasury (1875)
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The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
"Nature XXVII, Autumn"
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Autumn hath all the summer's fruitful treasure;
Gone is our sport, fled is poor Croydon's pleasure.
—Thomas Nashe (1567–1601)
"Summer's Last Will and Testament" (1660)
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I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence.
—Thomas Hood (1799–1845)
"Ode: Autumn" (1827)
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Crown'd with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on.
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
"Autumn" (1730)
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The long sobs
Of the violins
Of autumn
Pierce my heart
With monotonous languor.
—Paul Verlaine (1844–1896)
"Song of Autumn," Poèmes Saturniens (1866)
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It's all a farce, –these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.
—Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906)
"Lyrics of a Lowly Life," (1896– ) Merry Autumn
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Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!
—Humbert Wolfe (1885–1940)
"Autumn (Resignation)" (1926)
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Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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