Ode: Autumn
Thomas Hood
1799 to 1845
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours.
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
Under the languid downfall of her hair;
And honey been save stored
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Like a dim picture of the drownëd past
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak tree!
Lest owls should prey
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
With the last leaves for a love-rosary;
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
And sighs her tearful spells
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away,
Alone, alone,
Undazzled at noon-day,
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
Upon a mossy stone,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
The sweets of summer in their luscious cells;
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl;
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
There is enough of sadness to invite,
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
The swallows all have wing'd across the main;
To a most gloomy breast.
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite