The Atmosphere of the Poem
Poem is beautiful and when you read it, it sounds more like a song than a prose. It is not focus on the grammar and correct English but the feelings, emotions and atmosphere. How can a poem be readable without using full sentences for each line? How can author’s emotions when he wrote the poem be understandable by reading the poem? Some of the poems can be understood by people who are not good at analyzing poems, the reason is the feelings and the atmosphere of the poem can bring readers into the world that it describes. The atmosphere of a poem helps readers understand the poem better physically and psychological.
This poem is about the life-time of autumn leaves. How those leaves change during autumn day by day. And also some sceneries in the woods, which create a peaceful, cold and little bit grey atmosphere of the autumn.
The poem is separated into four stanzas, and the first sentence of each stanza is all the same which is “ once upon an autumn day”. The title is also the same. This kind of repetition of sentence makes the poem look much more neatly and orderly. And other three sentences in one stanza are different. And it will let people focus on the differences between the last three sentences of every stanza that indicates the change of autumn leaves and trees as the passing of time. The poem clearly shows that the leaves first change their colors and then fall down roaming in the wind, and they stop in the haven and finally be covered by the snow.
It seems as just telling the facts, but the whole poem uses many figurative languages that portrays the deeper meaning of the poem. For example, the whole poem uses personification to describe the breeze and leaves. It says “whispering breeze was here to stay/ moving aimlessly through the countless trees” which means the breeze is soft and not that strong. It creates a peaceful and quiet atmosphere. And the leaves “until at last they came to rest/ finding a haven in which to nest” also indicates that it is the end of the leaves life, and they find their belonging to start the long dreams. The important thing of writing a scenery poem is to create the atmosphere and images because by doing this way the readers can imagine the pictures of the poem and think about the plots by themselves. It is kind of to call the same feelings between the speaker and readers. It is a psychological way to help readers understand the poetry much better.
The author uses hyperbole. “ the countless trees” shows the number of the trees is big. But the trees are countable, so here is hyperbole. The reason why the author writes there are lots of trees is to show that here is the homeland of leaves and trees which matches up with the “belonging” that mentioned above.
The rhyme scheme is AABB AACC AADD AAEE which is very strict, however, the meters are not strictly following the rule. For the first stanza, it uses assonance, which is the repetition of /i/ sound, that gives readers the feeling of chilly to tell that autumn is coming. It is not the hot summer any more, which lays the foundation of the temperature of the poem. Actually, there are many /i/ sounds in the whole poem. The author also uses consonances, which is the repetition of /s/ sound. It imitates the sound of the wind and the sound of leaves falling down. The repetition of sounds is a good way to create the feelings and atmosphere which lets reader involve in the poem physically.
When I read the poem, there are many images floating in my brain which are the fading leaves hanging on the tree branches and be blown down to the ground by the wind; a haven which is full of dead leaves and finally is covered by the white snow. Normally, death is a sad and scary thing. However, in this poem, because of the way the author writes and the atmosphere he creates, the death of leaves becomes to a peaceful thing that is much more acceptable. They are just resting in their belonging, the haven, and having a sweet lengthy winter dream.
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