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Fall Leaves Fall
by Emily Brontë
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
__________________________
If you’re looking for a bit of moody poetry, this might be the one for you. Using nature themes, the Speaker advocates for winter, death, and dreariness in general. We can only speculate about the Speaker’s motivation, but perhaps she’s gone through a broken heart and cannot abide people. Or maybe she just cannot abide people whether her heart is broken or not.
The poem consists of eight lines, one stanza, The rhyme scheme is AA BB CC DD. The meter is called Trochaic Tetrameter. What is that you might ask?
Trochaic tetrameter is a common metrical pattern that can be seen throughout the history of poetic verse writing. The pattern is used in all styles of poetry dating back centuries and up to the present day. It is usually found in the form of a quatrain or four-line poem. Trochaic tetrameter provides a sing-song quality to the poem, lending it an air of musicality.
It can be seen when the poet uses a pattern of four troches in every line averse. This means that each line contains four sets of two syllables, the first syllable is stressed, and the second syllable is unstressed.
If you’re counting the “beats” within each of the lines above, you’ll consistently see 3 and a half, or 4.
The first two lines – issued as a command by the Speaker – sound like the casting of a spell when the poem is read aloud. It is not clear why the Speaker wants night to be extended, and day shortened, but the invocation here definitely sets a dark mood. That is further perpetuated by the personification of the dying leaves, starting in in line 3. Their dying and falling “speaks bliss” to her – which is in a way kind of macabre. Alternatively though, you could read these lines to mean that the leaves are happy to be falling and dying.
Line 5 tough, helps to interpret the previous two lines. The Speaker clarifies that she is the one smiling, to see snow wreaths in place of roses. We should interpret the joy felt in the piece as being that of the Speaker.
The final two lines put the cherry atop this dreary Sundae. It’s not enough to wish for an extended night. The Speaker tells us that she wants the day that follows to be drearier, too. She wants it so much that the reality will cause her to sing. You get the sense that the Speaker is a poetic Wednesday Adams.
I enjoyed very much the following reading by Graveyard Poetry:
