The speaker addresses November warmly, calling it a prophetess and wind-lover, and immediately confesses a fondness for its harsh, rowdy character. Even in the month’s chaos, he finds scattered joys. He describes a sudden gale whipping the forest into a furious roar, then a downpour that calms the heaving treetops, leaving them quiet like a spent sea. He’s drawn to what he calls its “wizard noise” and admits it stirs him to a kind of half-dazed, rhyming rapture. When the rain drives him under a cloak of ivied oak, he doesn’t just shelter—he murmurs back at the storm, enchanted by its wild music. Deep down, he envies that raw melody and longs to borrow it, so his own verse could become a “living song” worthy of the month. The mood is intimate and exhilarated, full of rough weather and a deep, almost restless attachment to nature’s untamed power.
November — Summary
Sybil of months, and worshipper of winds, I love thee, rude and boisterous as thou art; And scraps of joy my wandering ever finds Mid thy uproarious madness--when the start Of sudden tempests stirs the forest leaves Into hoarse fury, till the shower set free Stills the huge swells. Then ebb the mighty heaves, That sway the forest like a troubled sea. I love thy wizard noise, and rave in turn Half-vacant thoughts and rhymes of careless form; Then hide me from the shower, a short sojourn, Neath ivied oak; and mutter to the storm, Wishing its melody belonged to me, That I might breathe a living song to thee.