The Power of Words

An elegy is a lament for a deceased person and in the “Autumn Elegy” this person is mourning for the death of men destroyed by war. Autumn is my favorite time of the year. I feel more relaxed and comfortable; this is a time when I contemplate more on life and find the beauty in everything. For me this poem was more of a gift to those close friends; remembering them year after year, although they are gone.
In describing the year’s death, the writer uses f and v in “firm veins” to denote a sense of friction and “shut” to denote a stopping of the flow of blood. The words “sluggish blood” give sound to this sentence; you can hear, feel, and see the bogging down of the blood flow, slower and slower till it stops.
I really enjoyed the use of the words protestation, opulent, panoply, and anneals. I looked up these words and I believe it helped me draw more out of the poem.
Protestation (protest) is an expression or disapproval of something a person is powerless to prevent or avoid. Death is inevitable, especially for plants around autumn time. The very leaves are protesting against dying (the rustling of leaves); their veins are closing and they too will soon fall to the ground.
Opulent is a rich, luxurious abundance of something and panoply is a splendid or magnificent array. It surprised me to find the meaning to these words. You get a sense for the greatness of these deaths. Apparently an abundance of people died but yet there was splendor and magnificence about the deaths. You draw a sort of inspiration from these people.
The writer is drawing from the powerful splendor of the moment before the wind “anneals” it all. Anneal means to harden something, toughen it, or remove internal stress. At this moment standing in the garden, the writer reflects on the meaning of a close friend’s death. Although there is sadness and mourning in this poem, I think there is also a sense of completeness; a ‘turning of the years back’ and embracing the ‘glory of Autumn’.