At Rugmer by Edmund Blunden

Among sequestered farms and where brown orchards
Weave in the thin and coiling wind, and where
The pale cold river ripples still as moorhens
Work their restless crossing,
Among such places, when
October warnings
Sound from each kex and thorn and shifting leaf,
We well might wander, and renew some stories
Of a dim time when we were kex and thorn,
Sere leaf, ready to hear a hissing wind
Whip down and wipe us out; our season seemed
At any second closing.
So, we were wrong. But we have lived this landscape,
And have an understanding with these shades.

The poem portrays a beautiful yet depressing picture of autumn, which the poet uses as the triggering subject to generate the idea of inevitable death of men. The generated subject is in full view when the poet writes “our season seemed at any second closing.” The season here is parallel to life, and the poet speaks in the first person – using “we” – to emphasize that not a single person could escape the ending of his season. His views and attitudes about life and death are evident in his language describing the triggering subject. Words such as “sequestered, cold, warnings” associate with death. Even though the generated subject becomes only evident at the end of the poem, such use of gloomy words has already foreshadowed the generated subject to come. Thus the poet leaves the triggering subject behind and nicely presents his generated subject. The speaker compares life to the landscape he is observing. From the way the poem is written, it seems that the speaker is at some place looking far into the space before him, in which he sees the farms, the brown orchards, the wind, the river, and the movements of the leaves. While looking at nature in its ending season, the speaker is reminded of life and the inevitability of death. The last sentence clearly reveals his view on what all men have to face. The speaker says we “have an understanding with these shades,” to mean that men, like certain things in nature, will some day be cold and gone. It is interesting, however, that some things in nature, like men, do not last but some things in nature will “whip and wipe us out.”