potd: My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
--Robert Frost
Perhaps anticipating the season a bit, a snippet of this poem arrived in the email announcing Black Phoenix's monthly update. The perfume it was associated with is described as "The first autumn rains dripping onto fallen leaves against a backdrop of opoponax, labdanum, patchouli, agarwood, and oakmoss"... mmm! The poem itself? Lovely. I don't want to deconstruct it for fear it'll lose its elusive magic (Frost was a master of form, but his sentences often lack grace) but it makes me think of those damp, chilly overcast days between fall and winter that seem like they should be dark and gloomy, but the sky glows with a pale shadowless light that somehow picks out details with immense clarity. Autumn is a wonderful season... it has so many diverse kinds of beauty!
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
--Robert Frost
Perhaps anticipating the season a bit, a snippet of this poem arrived in the email announcing Black Phoenix's monthly update. The perfume it was associated with is described as "The first autumn rains dripping onto fallen leaves against a backdrop of opoponax, labdanum, patchouli, agarwood, and oakmoss"... mmm! The poem itself? Lovely. I don't want to deconstruct it for fear it'll lose its elusive magic (Frost was a master of form, but his sentences often lack grace) but it makes me think of those damp, chilly overcast days between fall and winter that seem like they should be dark and gloomy, but the sky glows with a pale shadowless light that somehow picks out details with immense clarity. Autumn is a wonderful season... it has so many diverse kinds of beauty!