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I LIKE THE SMELL OF BURNING LEAVES
I like the smell of burning leaves,
And I know why I do:
It makes me think of yellow sheaves
When harvest times are through.
It takes me back to boyhood days-
And Oh, those days were good!
We played among the stacked up maize
And in the barren wood.
We hauled the yellow pumpkins in
From field to bursting barn;
We saw our mothers sit and spin
The crimson-colored yarn;
We heard the ghostly stories told -
And Oh, the nights were still.
We knew of Winter's coming cold-
E'en then the nights were chill.
I like the smell of burning leaves,
And I know why I do;
Because it brings back memories
Of times, so good and true.
According to the best of authorities, this lyric, to be compared only with Coleridge's "Ode on Dejection," is accounted to be our author's masterpiece. The limped movement makes one actually feel as if he were riding on the jolting wagon on top of the pumpkins.
As it is certain that the poet never lived on a farm and as we know that he had a country charge [assignment as pastor], we think that this poem was a result of his long walks through the country to his church. All in all we consider this effort very creditable, yet we find that it has many weaknesses. He says, "and I know why I do." This is accounted for in the fact that it is only a creeping out of his self-confidence. "Yellow pumpkins" is a hackneyed expression, worthy only of a sophomore. "Ghostly" in the fourth stanza is incorrectly used:-A person is ghostly and stories are ghost stories. This fourth stanza mars the general effect. The first line is the only good one. The word "night" is repeated too much.
["Selections from the Poetical Works of William Leroy Stidger (for many years a student at Allegheny College)," The Allegheny Literary Monthly, Volume 13, Number 9, June, 1909.]
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