On an autumn evening, a lone figure leans at a window as the wind moves through the pines and poplars. The trees seem almost human: they bend to listen, then shake with “hysterical laughter.” The fading daylight shuts like a house closing its shutters. Further down the valley, gravestones blur in grey mist, and the street lamps glow red as if bleeding into the dark. Leaves rush past the glass and seem to whisper to the watcher inside. The mood is eerie and hushed, full of unrest and quiet dread. The speaker feels the pull of something outside—wind, leaves, darkness—but remains separate, watching “for ever earnestly” from behind the glass. It is a poem about isolation, mortality, and the strange life that autumn air seems to carry.
At the Window — Summary
The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.
Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.
The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.