RPO -- Dante Gabriel Rossetti : Autumn Song

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Autumn Song

1Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf

2How the heart feels a languid grief

3 Laid on it for a covering,

4 And how sleep seems a goodly thing

5In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

6And how the swift beat of the brain

7Falters because it is in vain,

8 In Autumn at the fall of the leaf

9 Knowest thou not? and how the chief

10Of joys seems--not to suffer pain?

11Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf

12How the soul feels like a dried sheaf

13 Bound up at length for harvesting,

14 And how death seems a comely thing

15In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

Notes

1] This lyric, in form a variation of the rondeau, was first entitled "The Fall of the Leaf." William Michael Rossetti notes that it was set to music by Edward Dannreuther and published as a song in 1883. It did not appear in any volume of Rossetti's works during his lifetime.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poetical Works, ed. William M. Rossetti (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1886). PR 5241 R67 1886 ROBA.
First publication date: 1883
RPO poem editor: Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims
RP edition: 3RP 3.269.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/13

Composition date: September 1848
Rhyme: aabba

Other poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti