"Autumn Rain" by D. H. Lawrence

 

Autumn Rain

The plane leaves

fall black and wet

on the lawn;

 

the cloud sheaves

in heaven’s fields set

droop and are drawn

 

in falling seeds of rain;

the seed of heaven

on my face

 

falling — I hear again

like echoes even

that softly pace

 

heaven’s muffled floor,

the winds that tread

out all the grain

 

of tears, the store

harvested

in the sheaves of pain

 

caught up aloft:

the sheaves of dead

men that are slain

 

now winnowed soft

on the floor of heaven;

manna invisible

 

of all the pain

here to us given;

finely divisible

falling as rain.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/v8Y76CeJwxo

Who wrote the poem "Autumn Rain"?

David Herbert Lawrence (September 11, 1885 – March 2, 1930)

D. H. Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright. His works dealt with modernity, industrialization, sexuality, and instinct. His novels Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover concerned such controversial topics as gay and lesbian relationships. Although, due to his peculiar artistic style, he had to experience persecution and often was disgraced as a mere pornographer, some critics praise him for his artistic talents, integrity, and moral seriousness.

"Autumn Rain" explanation

The speaker depicts falling autumn rain vividly and somberly, using various imagery and metaphors. The poem was written in Autumn 1916 and published in February, 1917. The dark shadows of World War I may be looming behind the reference to ‘dead/ men that are slain’ and ‘heaven’s fields’ (perhaps referring to the Elysian Fields, the place reserved for heroes fallen nobly in battle in Greek mythology).

"A Minor Bird" by Robert Frost

 

A Minor Bird

 

I have wished a bird would fly away,

And not sing by my house all day;

 

Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

 

The fault must partly have been in me.

The bird was not to blame for his key.

 

And of course there must be something wrong

In wanting to silence any song.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/AVMZrPENims

Who wrote the poem "A Minor Bird"?

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963)

Robert Frost was an American poet who was born in San Francisco, California. Frost’s life was marked by grief and loss. When he was 11, his father died of tuberculosis, leaving just eight dollars. Frost’s mother died of cancer when he was 26. Mental illness ran in his family. He and his mother suffered from depression, and his sister and his daughter were committed to mental hospitals. Using realistic depictions of rural life, his poems often examined complex social and philosophical themes. Frost’s first book was published at the age of 40, but he ended up winning four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry and becoming the most famous poet of his time.

"A Minor Bird" explanation

In the poem, the speaker is irritated by a “minor” bird’s song and tries to drive it away by clapping at it. Soon, he realizes that the bird is not to blame for its singing and it’s wrong to silence any song. The poet perhaps is suggesting that it’s wrong to suppress the voices of the weak and less important.

"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.

"The Last Rose of Summer" by Thomas Moore

 

The Last Rose of Summer 

‘Tis the last rose of Summer,

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flower of her kindred,

No rose-bud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes

Or give sigh for sigh!

 

I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,

To pine on the stem;

Since the lovely are sleeping,

Go sleep thou with them.

Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o’er the bed

Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead.

 

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,

And from Love’s shining circle

The gems drop away!

When true hearts lie withered,

And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music. 

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/taLo6FSFr-g

Who wrote the poem "The Last Rose of Summer"?

Thomas Moore (May 28, 1779 – February 25, 1852)

 

Thomas Moore was an Irish writer, poet, composer, lyricist, and political propagandist. He was known for bringing popular Irish culture to English audience by setting English verse to old Irish tunes. He was a close friend of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was also famous for burning Byron’s memoirs (with the publisher John Murray), presumably to protect Byron.

"The Last Rose of Summer" explanation

Moore wrote this poem in 1805, reportedly inspired by a specimen of Rosa ‘Old Blush.’ The poem was set to a traditional Irish tune called “The Young Man’s Dream.” The poem and the tune were published in 1813 in Moore’s A Selection of Irish Melodies.

"Stages" by Hermann Hesse

 

Stages

As every flower fades and as all youth

Departs, so life at every stage,

So every virtue, so our grasp of truth,

Blooms in its day and may not last forever.

Since life may summon us at every age

Be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavor,

Be ready bravely and without remorse

To find new light that old ties cannot give.

In all beginnings dwells a magic force

For guarding us and helping us to live.

 

Serenely let us move to distant places

And let no sentiments of home detain us.

The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us

But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.

If we accept a home of our own making,

Familiar habit makes for indolence.

We must prepare for parting and leave-taking

Or else remain the slaves of permanence.

 

Even the hour of our death may send

Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces,

And life may summon us to newer races.

So be it, heart: bid farewell without end.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/5TEHENiPy0w

Who wrote the poem "Stages"?

Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962)

Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. His works were deeply influenced by Eastern mysticism and explored such themes as individuals’ search for authenticity, identity, and spirituality.

"Stages" explanation

In the poem, the speaker suggests that death is nothing but a stage we all eventually go through and beyond. Therefore we should prepare for it, and when the time comes, we should accept it without fear or obsession.

"Symphony in Yellow" by Oscar Wilde

 

Symphony in Yellow

An omnibus across the bridge

Crawls like a yellow butterfly

And, here and there, a passer-by

Shows like a little restless midge.

 

Big barges full of yellow hay

Are moored against the shadowy wharf,

And, like a yellow silken scarf,

The thick fog hangs along the quay.

 

The yellow leaves begin to fade

And flutter from the Temple elms,

And at my feet the pale green Thames

Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/MRtFksjJ1ok

Who wrote the poem "Symphony in Yellow"?

Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900)

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet, playwright, and journalist. He attended Trinity College and Oxford University and became involved in the newly emerging aesthetic movement. His works include poetry, novels, and plays. His plays in particular became extremely popular in London in the 1890s. He married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and had two sons. At the pinnacle of his success, he began a homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas and was arrested and tried for gross indecency. He was convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labor, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. He was released with his health and reputation ruined and left for France and never returned. He soon died of meningitis in 1900 at the age of 46.

"Symphony in Yellow" explanation

In the poem, the speaker describes a mundane and yet colorful and beautiful scenery of a wharf around the Thames River. The poem presents vivid images, almost like a painting. Wide wrote this poem in 1889, strongly influenced by the Aesthetic movement.

"At a Window" by Carl Sandburg

 

At a Window

Give me hunger,

O you gods that sit and give

The world its orders.

Give me hunger, pain and want,

Shut me out with shame and failure

From your doors of gold and fame,

Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

 

But leave me a little love,

A voice to speak to me in the day end,

A hand to touch me in the dark room

Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes

Blurring the sunset,

One little wandering, western star

Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.

Let me go to the window,

Watch there the day-shapes of dusk

And wait and know the coming

Of a little love.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/3r1cakNExpQ

Who wrote the poem "At a Window"?

Carl Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967)

 

Carl Sandburg was an American poet, biographer, novelist, journalist, and folklorist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes (two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln). He has often been compared to Walt Whitman for his use of free verse and admiration of the working class.

"At a Window" explanation

In the poem, the speaker makes an unusual plea for hunger, pain, and want. All he wants in return is a little love. Love is so important to the speaker that he would forgo all his other pleasures.

"Up-Hill" by Christina Rossetti

 

Up-Hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.

 

But is there for the night a resting-place?

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

You cannot miss that inn.

 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

They will not keep you standing at that door.

 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

Yea, beds for all who come.

Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.

poem video👇

https://youtu.be/Ur1L7fTwaOo

Who wrote the poem "Up-Hill"?

Christina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 ~ December 29, 1894)

 

Christina Rossetti was an English poet who was lauded as one of the foremost female poets of the 19th-century Victorian era. She wrote romantic, devotional, and children's poems, marked by symbolism and intense feeling. Her literary status was often compared to that of Elizabeth Barren Browning, and upon Browning's death in 1861, Rossetti was hailed as Browning's rightful successor. She opposed slavery, cruelty to animals, and the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. Rossetti suffered from Graves' disease in the later decades of her life. In 1893, she was diagnosed of breast cancer and died of a recurrence in 1894.

"Up-Hill" explanation

The poem is written in the form of a set of conversation between two voices going on an up-hill journey together: one asking questions and the other answering them. The former seems to be struggling and tired, and the latter seems to be encouraging and optimistic. The conversation may represent the support from people around you or internal dialogues with yourself when you pursue any meaningful and difficult endeavors in life.