Autumnal
Pale amber sunlight falls acrossThe reddening October trees,That hardly sway before a breezeAs soft as summer: summer's lossSeems little, dear! on days like these.
Let misty autumn be our part!The twilight of the year is sweet:Where shadow and the darkness meetOur love, a twilight of the heartEludes a little time's deceit.
Are we not better and at homeIn dreamful Autumn, we who deemNo harvest joy is worth a dream?A little while and night shall come,A little while, then, let us dream.
Beyond the pearled horizons lieWinter and night: awaiting theseWe garner this poor hour of ease,Until love turn from us and dieBeneath the drear November trees.
Words in this poem
- dreamful a.
- Full of dreams.
- deem v. t.
- To decide; to judge; to sentence; to condemn. [OE. demen to judge, condemn, AS. d, fr. d doom; akin to OFries. d, OS. ad, D. doemen, OHG. tuommen, Icel. dæma, Sw. dömma, Dan. dömme, Goth. d. See Doom, n., an]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- garner n.
- A granary; a building or place where grain is stored for preservation. [OE. garner, gerner, greiner, OF. gernier, grenier, F. grenier, fr. L. granarium, fr. granum. See 1st Grain, and cf. Granary.]
- drear n.
- Sadness; dismalness.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Autumnal is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, With a Memoir by Arthur Symons, Project Gutenberg ebook #8497; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Dowson, Autumnal, in The Poems of Ernest Dowson (1896–1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8497, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dowson-poems/autumnal.html, id L01641.
Form and metre
Autumnal is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 50% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAB acrossA · treesB · breezeB · lossA · theseB
- 2 ABBAB partA · sweetB · meetB · heartA · deceitB
- 3 ABBAB homeA · deemB · dreamB · comeA · dreamB
- 4 ABBAB lieA · theseB · easeB · dieA · treesB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Pale amber sunlight falls across | 8 | ·/˘/··˘/ |
| The reddening October trees, | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/˘· |
| That hardly sway before a breeze | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As soft as summer: summer's loss | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Seems little, dear! on days like these. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Let misty autumn be our part! | 9 | ·/˘/˘·/˘· |
| The twilight of the year is sweet: | 8 | ·/······ |
| Where shadow and the darkness meet | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Our love, a twilight of the heart | 9 | /˘··/···· |
| Eludes a little time's deceit. | 8 | ˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| Are we not better and at home | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In dreamful Autumn, we who deem | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| No harvest joy is worth a dream? | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A little while and night shall come, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A little while, then, let us dream. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Beyond the pearled horizons lie | 9 | ····˘˘/˘· |
| Winter and night: awaiting these | 8 | /˘··˘/˘· |
| We garner this poor hour of ease, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| Until love turn from us and die | 8 | ········ |
| Beneath the drear November trees. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.