Kipling's Vermont

Kipling's Vermont - meaning Summary

Seasonal Satire Via Ritual

Nash compresses a New England autumn into a single sardonic image. Summer "dies" like a rajah and the "widowed" trees seem to kindle a conflagration that he calls an "alien suttee." The couplet juxtaposes exotic Hindu funeral ritual with Congregationalist New England, producing ironic distance and wry cultural contrast. The poem both describes fall foliage and satirizes the metaphors and religious sensibilities used to interpret it.