XCIX.
This Poem is an address to the recurring anniversary of Hallam’s death, which had before been commemorated in Poem lxxii.—
“Day, when I lost the flower of men.”
The early signs of Autumn are very sweetly described, in personifying a day that will remind many of births and bridals, but still more of deaths; and wherever the sorrowing survivors may reside, they are on this day “kindred souls” with himself—though they be utter strangers—
“They know me not, but mourn with me.”
This applies to all
“Betwixt the slumber of the poles,”—
from one end of the world to the other.
The poles of the earth are the ends of the axis on which the world revolves. These never move, but “slumber.”
Autumn laying “a fiery finger on the leaves,” is an expression similar to