"Autumn"
The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)
Context: October's bellowing anger breakes and cleaves
The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves
For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud
Of outrage men. Their lives are like the leaves
Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown
Along the westering furnace flaring red.
O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,
The burden of your wrongs is on my head.
“Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”
“From my youth you have taught me, O God, and now I would like to proclaim Your Wonders”
Praise at the end of the index. In Systema Naturae (1758), from Psalm 71.
Original in Latin: "Docuisti me Deus a juventute mea, & usque nunc pronunciabo Mirabilia Tua"
Systema Naturae
“In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail."”
Act iii, Scene i.
Richelieu (1839)
July 1812, aged 37, reflecting on the failure to secure equal rights or Catholic Emancipation for Catholics in Ireland. Quoted from Vol I, p. 185, of O'Connell, J. (ed.) The Life and Speeches of Daniel O'Connell, 2 Vols, Dublin, 1846)
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 177.
Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
Quoted in German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and Others (1991), edited by Karen J. Campbell
Voici que vient l'été la saison violente
Et ma jeunesse est morte ainsi que le printemps
Ô soleil c'est le temps de la raison ardente
"La jolie rousse" (The Pretty Redhead), line 31; p. 135.
Calligrammes (1918)
Electra to her mother Clytemnestra, Act 1
The Flies (1943)
