"I Am The Autumnal Sun" by Henry David Thoreau

 

I Am The Autumnal Sun

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature

— not his Father but his Mother stirs

within him, and he becomes immortal with her

immortality. From time to time she claims

kindredship with us, and some globule

from her veins steals up into our own.

 

I am the autumnal sun,

With autumn gales my race is run;

When will the hazel put forth its flowers,

Or the grape ripen under my bowers?

When will the harvest or the hunter's moon

Turn my midnight into mid-noon?

I am all sere and yellow,

And to my core mellow.

The mast is dropping within my woods,

The winter is lurking within my moods,

And the rustling of the withered leaf

Is the constant music of my grief…

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/ffU7kM796I8

Who wrote the poem "I Am The Autumnal Sun"?

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

Henry David Thoreau was an American poet, essayist, naturalist, and philosopher. He was a leading transcendentalist and is best known for this book “Walden,” a personal reflection upon simple living in nature. His writings display a unique combination of a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail. Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, and he pioneered modern-day environmentalism. His political philosophy of civil disobedience, which argued for disobedience to an unjust state, later greatly influenced such historical figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. He died of tuberculosis at 44.

"I Am The Autumnal Sun" explanation

In the poem, the speaker declares metaphorically himself the Autumnal Sun and is feeling sorrowful because the season is changing. The poem was written in 1849, during Thoreau’s Walden years. Some interpret it as the poet’s lamenting getting old. Others relate it to Transcendentalism and the poet’s desire to know and become one with the world.