5. Autumn - Roy Campbell

I love to see, when leaves depart,

The clear anatomy arrive,

Winter, the paragon of art,

That kills all forms of life and feeling

 Save what is pure and will survive.

Already now the clanging chains

Of geese are harnessed to the moon:

Stripped are the great sun-clouding planes:

 And the dark pines, their own revealing,

 Let in the needles of the noon.

Strained by the gale the olives whiten

Like hoary wrestlers bent with toil

And, with the vines, their branches lighten

To brim our vats where summer lingers

In the red froth and sun-gold oil.

Soon on our hearth's reviving pyre

Their rotted stems will crumble up:

 And like a ruby, panting fire,

The grape will redden on your fingers

Through the lit crystal of the cup.

This poem by poet Roy Campbell is about the season of Autumn and its transition into Winter. It describes the absolute beauty of Autumn and describes Winter as a destructive, almost evil time. The poem uses very strange and complex metaphors to describe the season of Autumn and the transition into Winter. I struggle to find a complete meaning to this poem, and I feel like this is what makes it so interesting for me. The rhyme scheme is interesting, as each stanza is 5 lines, and lines 1 and 3 rhyme, as well as 2 and 5, which I believe draws attention to the 4. But if you look deeper, you will find that the 4th line in stanzas 1 and 2, as well as 3 and 4 rhyme.