I'm a dork, a die-hard fan of Biber--that's Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, not to be confused with Justin Bieber--and I jam out to his Mystery Sonatas for hours. It's a kind of wallowing. In my supreme dorkiness, I've also been jamming out lately to Robert Frost, that melancholy poet of autumn. Most people know him for his three most famous poems, but his lesser-known stuff is good, too. There's a note of sadness that runs through it all. He finds beauty and meaning in the declining season. He glories in the approach of winter. I'm a kindred spirit of anyone who loves November...
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are as beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
~Robert Frost
1913
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