Autumn Song
Autumn Song
Original Text
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poetical Works, ed. William M. Rossetti (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1886). PR 5241 R67 1886 ROBA.
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. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1883
RPO poem Editors
Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims
RPO Edition
3RP 3.269.
Rhyme