In November (2)

Archibald Lampman 1861 (Upper Canada) – 1899 (Ottawa, Canada)



With loitering step and quiet eye,
   Beneath the low November sky,
   I wandered in the woods, and found
   A clearing, where the broken ground
   Was scattered with black stumps and briers,
   And the old wreck of forest fires.
   It was a bleak and sandy spot,
   And, all about, the vacant plot,
   Was peopled and inhabited
  By scores of mulleins long since dead.
  A silent and forsaken brood
  In that mute opening of the wood,
  So shrivelled and so thin they were,
  So gray, so haggard, and austere,
  Not plants at all they seemed to me,
  But rather some spare company
  Of hermit folk, who long ago,
  Wandering in bodies to and fro,
  Had chanced upon this lonely way,
  And rested thus, till death one day
  Surprised them at their compline prayer,
  And left them standing lifeless there.

  There was no sound about the wood
  Save the wind's secret stir. I stood
  Among the mullein-stalks as still
  As if myself had grown to be
  One of their sombre company,
  A body without wish or will
  And as I stood, quite suddenly,
  Down from a furrow in the sky
  The sun shone out a little space
  Across that silent sober place,
  Over the sand heaps and brown sod,
  The mulleins and dead goldenrod,
  And passed beyond the thickets gray,
  And lit the fallen leaves that lay,
  Level and deep within the wood,
  A rustling yellow multitude.

  And all around me the thin light,
  So sere, so melancholy bright,
  Fell like the half-reflected gleam
  Or shadow of some former dream;
  A moment's golden reverie
  Poured out on every plant and tree
  A semblance of weird joy, or less,
  A sort of spectral happiness;
  And I, too, standing idly there,
  With muffled hands in the chill air,
  Felt the warm glow about my feet,
  And shuddering betwixt cold and heat,
  Drew my thoughts closer, like a cloak,
  While something in my blood awoke,
  A nameless and unnatural cheer,
  A pleasure secret and austere.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

1:40 min read
68

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDXXEFXGHHIIJJKK FFLHHLHACCMMJJFE NNOOHHCCKKPPQQGG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,912
Words 331
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 22, 16, 16

Archibald Lampman

Archibald Lampman FRSC was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott. more…

All Archibald Lampman poems | Archibald Lampman Books

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