The “Autumn Song” describes the sadness that comes and prevails as the autumn arrives. The poet finds autumn a doomed period in his life and has compared the fall of the leaf in the autumn season with some mournful event.
The poem carries a theme of depression and lifelessness that is accompanied with the autumn coming. The poet says that his heart begins to sink with grief and sorrow as the autumn leaves begin to fall. One just wants to lie down and sleep for longer periods, which the poet believes is an indication of the heart which wants to cry alone in sadness and mourning. The repeated use of the phrase “In Autumn at the fall of the leaf” is to emphasize that when the autumn leaves fall, it feels as if joys have begun to shed.
Not only the heart, but the mind or the brain also stops responding. The “swift beat of brain” refers to the response of the brain. With the autumn arriving, the brain also feels numb and fails to sense anything. So much is the inactivity of the brain that even the joys are sensed like pain by it when the autumn season comes. The dullness of the brain is an indication of the sadness that persists not only in the heart but also in the mind. The fall of the leaves is such a dismal scene that the mind and the heart fail to function correctly saddened by the autumn feel.
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Where the heart and the mind are not feeling right, the autumn fall also affects the soul of the poet. The soul feels dried and sorrowful and has no inner joy to relish. The soul also feels weak and lacks the liveliness as the autumn leaves start falling. The comparison of the soul with the dried stack of crop ready for harvesting, is bring out the mournful picture of the soul which is in deep pain and has is not happy with autumn coming. The poet is in such a grief and depression that he feels as if it is not the autumn but death arriving in its face. In other words, the poet finds that autumn lacks any reason and substance of life and is so dull and disheartening that one could even think of dying. Poet has expressed his hatred for the autumn which arrives with fall of the leaf and begins to fill his life- heart, mind and soul with pain and lifelessness.
Thus, this song is a poet’s verdict of strong disliking for the autumn and in very few lines the poet has drawn the picture in the reader’s mind of the autumn which is completely saddening and makes the autumn seem deadly and mournful.