Summary


In Autumn, Edmund Spenser's short poem, the season arrives as a living figure dressed all in yellow. He is laughing and glad, his arms laden with fruit, relieved that hunger has been banished at last. A wreath of mixed ears of corn crowns his head, and a sickle rests in his hand, ready to reap what the earth has yielded. The single stanza glows with abundance, gratitude and the quiet joy of harvest time.

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Then came the Autumn all in yellow clad,
As though he joyèd in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banished hunger, which to-fore
Had by the body oft him pinchèd sore:
Upon his head a wreath, that was enroll’d
With ears of corn of every sort, he bore;
And in his hand a sickle he did hold,
To reap the ripen’d fruits the which the earth had yold.

Autumn by Edmund Spenser: a laughing figure in yellow with a corn wreath and sickle, holding fruit in a golden harvest field.

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Credits

Edmund Spenser was an English Elizabethan poet, best known for the epic allegory The Faerie Queene. This stanza comes from his Mutability Cantos, where the seasons and months parade before Dame Nature as personified figures.