October Dawn
October is marigold, and yet A glass half full of wine left out To the dark heaven all night, by dawn Has dreamed a premonition Of ice across its eye as if The ice-age had begun its heave. The lawn overtrodden and strewn From the night before, and the whistling green Shrubbery are doomed. Ice Has got its spearhead into place. First a skin, delicately here Restraining a ripple from the air; Soon plate and river on pond and brook; Then tons of chain and massive lock To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight Will Mammoth and Sabre-tooth celebrate Reunion while a fist of cold Squeezes the fire at the core of the world, Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart, And now it is about to start.
October Dawn - form Summary
A Gradual Freeze Becomes Apocalypse
The poem is structured as a rapid enlargement: a thin film of ice on a forgotten glass becomes frost on the garden, then frozen waterways, and finally an imagined return of Ice Age creatures. This escalating sequence makes an ordinary October dawn feel like the beginning of a global catastrophe. Its closing repetition links the freezing world to an inward emotional chill.
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