Allingham’s sonnet opens in an autumn landscape of slow decay: day by day dead leaves fall and melt, while a monitory blast wails through keyholes and across empty fields. The bleakness gives way to a melancholy that feels, surprisingly, tenderer than any joy summer offered. It’s not harsh grief but a soft, welcoming sadness. Then the speaker turns to dear friends, imagining a dim evening where they sit together, pensive and glad, recognizing the “soft invisible dew” in each other’s eyes—the tears of shared, unspoken emotion. The poem finally looks beyond life: one day, when poor Earth lies distant, they’ll walk with memory itself, gently revisiting the world where they used to live and grieve. The mood is elegiac yet comforting; gradually, the poem shifts from autumn’s ache to a quiet hope—a vision of walking together with memory through a world left tenderly behind, where grief becomes something luminous.
Autumnal Sonnet — Summary
Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods, And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt, And night by night the monitory blast Wails in the key-hold, telling how it pass'd O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes, Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods Than any joy indulgent summer dealt. Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve, Pensive and glad, with tones that recognise The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes, It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave To walk with memory,--when distant lies Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve.