This week’s poem is Autumn by Walter de la Mare—it may seem rather unseasonal but the poem isn’t really about the season when the leaves fall, it’s about another kind of autumn: the kind where one is bereft of a loved one.
Sad winds where your voice was;
Walter de la Mare (1873—1956)
Tears, tears where my heart was
Poem 166. Autumn
There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.
Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.
Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.
I have chosen this poem because it was the anniversary of Nicola’s passing this week and the poem perfectly captures the sadness and regret of someone mourning their lost love.
I like it because it is beautifully evocative of a mood and is perhaps the clearest description of what I feel from time to time: the replacement of songbirds by grey clouds, cold emptiness instead of a warm hand, and only the soughing of the wind rather than the joyful sound of your sweetheart’s voice.