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Landscapes

Little leaves fall softly down

Red and yellow, orange and brown

Whirling, twirling round and round

Falling softly to the ground

Little leaves fall softly down

To make a carpet on the ground.

Then, swish, the wind comes whistling by

And sends them dancing to the sky.

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Cold wind of autumn, blowing loud

At dawn, a fortnight overdue,

Jostling the doors, and tearing through

My bedroom to rejoin the cloud,

I know—for I can hear the hiss

And scrape of leaves along the floor—

How may boughs, lashed bare by this,

Will rake the cluttered sky once more.

Tardy, and somewhat south of east,

The sun will rise at length, made known

More by the meagre light increased

Than by a disk in splendour shown;

When, having but to turn my head,

Through the stripped maple I shall see,

Bleak and remembered, patched with red,

The hill all summer hid from me.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

AUTUMN leaves, autumn leaves

Lie strewn around me here,

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves,

How sad, how cold, how drear!

How like the hopes of childhood's day,

Thick clust'ring on the bough!

How like those hopes in their decay—

How faded are they now!

Withered leaves, withered leaves,

That fly before the gale;

Withered leaves, withered leaves,

Ye tell a mournful tale

Of love once true, and friends once kind,

And happy moments fled:

Dispersed by every breath of wind,

Forgotten, changed, or dead.

Charles Dickens

What do these three poems have in common?

What's your favourite one? Why? Comment on it.

Find another poem about the same topic.

Departures

Dear co-travellers,

Welcome to this virtual journey in English! I'm not sure where we're heading, nor how we'll get there, but I do not think we'll get lost.

This is a journey I would like to share with my present and former students in the near future. I hope this blog becomes a meeting point to share ideas and publish outstanding work, the very same that shouldn't be kept in forgotten notebooks. That's it, a virtual notebook, a scrapbook... in English!

See you soon here.