Autumn moods, musings, and Burns!
By Andy MacCulloch
Every year as autumn rolls around I cannot help but feel a wee bit of melancholy. The warmth and sunshine are receding. Days are getting shorter. Winter looms. At the same time the weather is fine and as the trees come into bloom the glory of nature presents itself. Change is definitely in the air. As F. Scott Fitsgerald once said: “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." This melancholy, bittersweet change is part of our lives as the summer turns to fall. This has not gone unnoticed by poets and philosophers alike. I hope these poems by Robert Burns and thought-provoking quotes helps us better reflect upon this beautiful changing season.
Philosophers see beyond a mere drifting towards a dark winter and perhaps what is now known as seasonal affective disorder. It’s something deeper. George Eliot asked, “is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love—that makes life and nature harmonize." Friedrich Nietzche went further, prodding us to “notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.”
Robert Burns, being a lover of nature and of mankind of course has more to say about this. As he is wont to do, he does not frame autumn as good or bad, happy or sad but personalizes it acknowledging that the changing of seasons creates strong emotional responses in people. In The Lazy Mist, Burns bemoans the passing of summer and coming of winter. How time passes too quickly. How sprightly scenes have turned to leafless forests and brown meadows, as summer has flown.
Here, I take liberty to add a few thoughts of my own, as we contemplate Burns’ musings.
The Lazy Mist
The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark-winding rill;
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear,
As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.
The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues.
But he does not leave it at that. The autumn air also sparks melancholy and reflection. The changing of the season mirrors the changing seasons of life and sometimes gives rise to misery! Is this what Mr. Nietzche was talking about? Gut wrenching existential melancholy and soul searching at its finest.
How long I have liv’d - but how much liv’d in vain;
How little of life’s scanty span may remain:
What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn;
What ties, cruel Fate, in my bosom has torn.
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain’d!
And downward, how weaken’d, how darken’d, how pain’d!
Life is not worth having with all it can give,
For something beyond it poor man sure must live.
Burns’ moods and views of autumn are not always so dire. In Composed in August, (Westlin Winds) his thoughts turn to love and appreciation of this beautiful time of year. He revels in the blooming heather and pleasant weather walking with his “charmer”… Burns embraces the power of the changing season and harvest time.
Composed in August
Now westlin winds and slaught’ring guns
Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,
Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, as I rove by night,
To muse upon my charmer.
But, Peggy dear, the ev’ning’s clear,
Thick flies the skimming swallow,
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading - green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of Nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And ilka happy creature.
For other writers, the idea of natural change stimulating personal change is more than significant. Embracing change and moving on is a theme. As Wallace Stegner suggests: "Another fall, another turned page.” An unknown author suggests: “Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”
What’s more, here are apropos quotes by renowned thinkers:
“The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of.”
- Henry David Thoreau
“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”
- Albert Camus
However it strikes you, autumn seems a time for change and reflection. The beauty of the falling leaves and the march towards winter impacts us all. Enjoy it like Burns. Or find it difficult (also like Burns). Embrace it if only for this uplifting perspective from John Steinbeck:
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”