Autumn - Christopher Brennan

Autumn: the year breathes dully towards its death,
beside its dying sacrificial fire;
the dim world's middle-age of vain desire
is strangely troubled, waiting for the breath
that speaks the winter's welcome malison
to fix it in the unremembering sleep:
the silent woods brood o'er an anxious deep,
and in the faded sorrow of the sun,
I see my dreams' dead colours, one by one,
forth-conjur'd from their smouldering palaces,
fade slowly with the sigh of the passing year.
They wander not nor wring their hands nor weep,
discrown'd belated dreams! but in the drear
and lingering world we sit among the trees
and bow our heads as they, with frozen mouth,
looking, in ashen reverie, towards the clear
sad splendour of the winter of the far south.

This seemingly Petrarchan sonnet was written by Australian poet Christopher Brennan. It fits my theme because it is about autumn. It follows an unusual rhyme scheme of ABBA CDDC EFGH GIJG J. This poem laments of the coming of autumn, marking the passing of a year, and passing of missed opportunities and unrealized dreams. Autumn is described as a season of death. The significant repetition of a d sound in the first three lines adds to the effect. The imagery is dull, sad, and depressing, reminiscent of death, “the year breathes dully towards it death”, “dying sacrificial fire”, “dim world’s middle-age of vain desire”, “unremembering sleep”, “silent woods”, and so forth. There is personification as well, “They wander not nor wring their hands nor weep” (of his dreams), “faded sorrow of the sun”. This poem beautifully captures the sad, lonely autumn feeling.