Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost
This poem belongs to a long literary tradition of nature poems. Robert Frost encapsulates the fleeting nature of this transitional season, Autumn, through the idea that nothing that is youthful or holds beauty may “stay” for eternity. Perhaps he means to communicate the idea that, similar to life itself, impermanence makes something all the more lovely. The precious gold hues of Autumn leaves must leave us after a while. By expanding the lens from a single leaf to a biblical paradise – the Garden of Eden – Frost amplifies this idea that eternal happiness, an eternal autumn, can never stay. This human element is captured through the natural, to remind us that every part of life is transient, just like seasons, ushering us to appreciate every enchanting moment.
Spellbound by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë, best known got her 1847 mysterious gothic novel Wuthering Heights, wrote equally haunting poems. ‘Spellbound’ reminds us that the spirit of Autumn is equally chilling as it is charming. The title itself amplifies this aspect of the season, luring us into a sinister and spell-binding place. The speaker experiences a kind of magical paralysis, finding themselves stuck a setting which is dark and perilous. As well as this bleak awareness, I find the natural descriptions of the “bare boughs” and “wild winds” reminiscent of the bleak landscape that this season brings, with its falling leaves and cold atmosphere. Paired with the violent image of a certain “tyrant spell,” this poem becomes evidently gloomy, and invites a symbolic reading that suggests the speaker is trapped inside their own mind, unable to “go” and detach themselves from a depressing emotional torment.
To Autumn by John Keats
The timeless, much celebrated poem, ‘To Autumn’ offers a gentle and romantic view of our beloved season, and meditates on its temporary essence. Keats personifies autumn, asking it to forget about what seasons came before, reminding it that it “hast thy [own] music,” and it is a beautiful, rich song swelling with life. This life is made apparent through vivid autumnal imagery, reminding us of its abundant fruitfulness, the ripe apples, sweet honey and “plump hazel shells.”
However, the step that treads on the heels of ripeness is inevitable death. But of course, Keats, being the English Romantic poet that he was, does not offer a pessimistic approach as Robert Frost had done, but instead shows us how beautiful it is to let things go. Autumn’s crops will be harvested, leaves will fall and winter will approach swiftly, yet it does not diminish its beauty, but instead makes it all the more powerful. The impending death that accompanies this season, and by extension our lives as well, injects a sense of vibrancy and encourages not to dwell on what came before, but where we are now.
