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Lyric Poem · Nature

Autumn Within

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1It is autumn; not without

2But within me is the cold.

3Youth and spring are all about;

4It is I that have grown old.

5Birds are darting through the air,

6Singing, building without rest;

7Life is stirring everywhere,

8Save within my lonely breast.

9There is silence: the dead leaves

10Fall and rustle and are still;

11Beats no flail upon the sheaves,

12Comes no murmur from the mill.

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Quick facts

Poem
Autumn Within
Poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Length
12 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Autumn, Spring

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
12 lines · 3 quatrains
Line length
Mostly 7-syllable lines.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
Source record
PoetryDBAutumn Within by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 5660833efef57ba3
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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