Autumn as a Language
by LEONARD BACON
HAVE you learned Autumn yet? For I have not.
It is a harder language than Spring or Summer,
Richer in connotations, with more color,
More resonance, and more finality
In its more positive phrasing. I am resolved
At length to master it. One main difficulty
Is that it makes you forget language you knew
Before your thought grows up to the novel idiom,
If that, indeed, ever takes place at all.
Which raises the question: Did you know the others
As thoroughly as you thought? Probably not.
At any rate, communication’s broken.
It’s like being deaf. You half catch what is said,
Grasp but a tithe, and know you’ve lost the knack
Of Summer language you won’t speak again.
And as for Spring’s — passion and sympathy,
Interpretation’s origins, do not
Suffice in this case. For you need shades of meaning
Unknown to the autumnal verb or noun.
But it is a great language. Superb conclusions,
Complex but lucid, reign in the syllables
Of Autumn, articulate, intense, severe.
They have their music, a less obvious melody
Than makes some dreamy sadness meritorious.
For Autumn is the language which declares
With greatest force that what must be endured
Cannot be mitigated or ignored.
Self-pity’s not the tune, and sentiment
Sounds empty when translated into sharp
And yet sonorous wholly explicit terms,
Whose definitions have excluded doubt.
As I said, it’s a difficult language. I intend
To master it — I must. It asks some valiance.
After it there’s a tongue that’s seldom learned
In its completeness.
It is a harder language than Spring or Summer,
Richer in connotations, with more color,
More resonance, and more finality
In its more positive phrasing. I am resolved
At length to master it. One main difficulty
Is that it makes you forget language you knew
Before your thought grows up to the novel idiom,
If that, indeed, ever takes place at all.
Which raises the question: Did you know the others
As thoroughly as you thought? Probably not.
At any rate, communication’s broken.
It’s like being deaf. You half catch what is said,
Grasp but a tithe, and know you’ve lost the knack
Of Summer language you won’t speak again.
And as for Spring’s — passion and sympathy,
Interpretation’s origins, do not
Suffice in this case. For you need shades of meaning
Unknown to the autumnal verb or noun.
But it is a great language. Superb conclusions,
Complex but lucid, reign in the syllables
Of Autumn, articulate, intense, severe.
They have their music, a less obvious melody
Than makes some dreamy sadness meritorious.
For Autumn is the language which declares
With greatest force that what must be endured
Cannot be mitigated or ignored.
Self-pity’s not the tune, and sentiment
Sounds empty when translated into sharp
And yet sonorous wholly explicit terms,
Whose definitions have excluded doubt.
As I said, it’s a difficult language. I intend
To master it — I must. It asks some valiance.
After it there’s a tongue that’s seldom learned
In its completeness.