Autumn:A Dirge

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year

On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
     Is lying.
               Come, Months, come away,
               From November to May,
               In your saddest array;
               Follow the bier
               Of the dead cold Year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulcher.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the Year;

The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
     To his dwelling.
               Come, Months, come away;
               Put on white, black and gray;
               Let your light sisters play--
               Ye, follow the bier
               Of the dead cold Year,

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

This poem has an interest theme as it changes from death to life. In the beginning it talks about the darker seasons of the year in which plants die. It shows a cycle of seasons and the order being from death to life somewhat symbolizing a rebirth year after year.  I really like the rhyme scheme and the play on words when it repeats, “come, months, come away” and then it describes a different time of year. By giving the seasons personified functions it really shows why nature is sometimes called “Mother Nature.” This poem also shows Shelley’s writing style by the use of exaggerated nature and the beauty nature can bring.

                Shelley is well known to use the season autumn as a theme in his poetry because it shows beauty along with a change to death as the leaves fall off the trees and nature makes a shift to prepare for winter. Other poems that have an autumn theme include “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and “Ode to The West Wind.”Autumn also shows the creativity and destructive powers nature can have. Autumn is a fitting background for Shelley’s vision of political and social revolution because it can have such a drastic change on the Earth’s physical appearance. Shelley often suggests that the natural world holds a sublime power over his imagination. Nature also has a creative power over him because he is very inspired by the natural world and what nature is capable of. Shelley often finds giving nature’s power to God difficult because he believes that nature’s beauty comes from a divine source and nature is only the result of pure imagination.
            The cycle of seasons in this poem is expressed in many other of Shelley’s poetry in a different form. His overall perception of each cycle is to portray a cycle of life that occurs with all living species, plants, and land in nature. Shelley’s individual push to show the power of nature is different from other poets by the way he conveys the natural world to the reader. The power of seasons changing in this poem is Shelley’s ways of showing the overall power yet grace the natural world consists of.