Immortal Autumn

Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)



I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.
Now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows
Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves
And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.
I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 24, 2023

58 sec read
110

Quick analysis:

Scheme XA AX XBCCB DEED FGGF HXEH
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,039
Words 194
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 2, 2, 5, 4, 4, 4

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. more…

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