"Silence," by Thomas Hood

Thomas Hood on Autumn

I recently returned to a poem about autumn by Thomas Hood, a lesser known British writer of the Romantic period; he was born at the same time as the French Revolution and died in 1845. The poem is a bit too long, and it's uneven, but there is still much to like about and to learn from it.

Autumn

by Thomas Hood

I Saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;—
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noonday,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak-tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey bees have stored
The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing'd across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone
With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drownèd past
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair:
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

No later than the early 20th century, personifying a season or other elements of nature was considered a worn-out poetic technique, even a kind of fallacy, although personification, per se, is not off limits. Much depends on how it's deployed. In Hood's poem, it's deployed too predictably, although he surprises us by apparently changing the gender of autumn from male to female as the poem proceeds. I do find many of the observations and much of the concrete imagery appealing here. The poem is aware of its surroundings, and we get a glimpse of moss, squirrels, swallows, bees, and even ants. I do appreciate the "fact" that, in stanza one, the dew pearls the "coronet" of corn. That's not bad at all. And the simple question, "Where are the songs of Summer?" remains poignant. The late American poet Richard Hugo, in his book on writing, The Triggering Town, advises poets not to answer questions they ask (in poems), and with regard to Hood's question, I think I agree. The question is effective as is.

Often, especially in the Pacific Northwest, where summer can be nasty, brutish, and short, you hear people say, after October has once again appeared seemingly out of nowhere like an unpleasant relative, "Where did our summer go? We didn't really have a summer . . . ."

Seriously Sick of the Muse

The 19th-century British poet Thomas Hood has a nice little poem in which he expresses weariness with the pressures of writing poetry, with the obligation to be a Serious Poet. The poem, by title, is dedicated to Minerva, Roman goddess/muse of poetry and other arts. The poem also mentions Thyrsis, a singing shepherd in Virgil's poetry, and it alludes to Pallas (Athena), the Greek predecessor of Minerva.

To Minerva

by Thomas Hood

My temples throb, my pulses boil,
I'm sick of Song and Ode and Ballad--
So Thyrsis, take the Midnight Oil,
And pour it on a lobster salad.

By rain is dull, my sight is foul,
I cannot write a verse, or read,--
Then Pallas, take away thine Owl,
And let us have a lark instead.

Thus Hood, on a lark, so to speak, produces an anti-serious-poetry poem.

In honor of Hood and poems written on a lark (to give Minerva a coffee break), a poem that larks about:

Just Between You and Me

I ponder you. You ponder me.
Thus we create a palpable
ponderability,
a kind of interstasis
or interpersonal oasis
that’s both and neither
Other and Self.
Shuck and jive and humming hive,
the twixt between us is alive.


from The Coast Starlight: Collected Poems 1976-2006, Hans Ostrom