The Weather is Finally Getting Shitty (Emily Brontë Agrees)

I have always been that miserable friend who complains at the smallest trace of warm weather. Who says “let’s sit inside” when you want to have a beer in the sunshine. Who will not move a finger as soon as the thermometer hits 25 °C. Am I a vampire? Maybe. I prefer the term ‘bad weather enthusiast’.

As I was paging through my newly acquired A Poem for Every Night of the Year anthology, I came across this gem of an autumn poem. Good old Em, she gets it!

Fall, Leaves, Fall

by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night’s decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Bloody flowers.. :p. I’ve read many poems about autumn’s beauty, but this is my first that acknowledges and celebrates the wretchedness of the season. It seems clear to me that in this poem nature serves as an extension of the speaker’s mental state. From there, you can interpret the rest of the poem in two ways: the speaker either takes dark pleasure in the way the upcoming season reflects their own gloominess or longs for the moment when they can shed their dark thoughts like leaves from a tree and watch the cold winter wind blow them away. What do you think?

Fortunately, I am much happier. I love the autumn. I love the cold ‘bite’ in the air when I bike to class in the morning, I love the crunchy leaves on the streets, the colourful trees, picking up conkers on my way to work, warm socks, candles, sipping Chai on rainy afternoons, cosy board game nights, and, like Joe Fox, “a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils”.

You may be sick of the amount of people gushing about the change of season by now, but I can’t get enough of our communal craziness. When I’ve published this post I will make myself a spicy cup of tea and scroll through yet another bunch of autumn themed Instagram posts. Catch you later! 🙂