CREATIVE REFRESHMENT
‘Autumn Tints’ by Mathilde Blind
Celebrating the fleeting kaleidoscope of autumn colours
‘Autumn Tints’ by Mathilde Blind*
Coral-coloured yew-berries Strew the garden ways, Hollyhocks and sunflowers Make a dazzling blaze In these latter days.
Marigolds by cottage doors Flaunt their golden pride, Crimson-punctured bramble leaves Dapple far and wide The green mountain-side.
Far away, on hilly slopes Where fleet rivulets run, Miles on miles of tangled fern, Burnished by the sun, Glow a copper dun.
For the year that’s on the wane, Gathering all its fire, Flares up through the kindling world As, ere they expire, Flames leap high and higher.
Mathilde Blind was a 19th century poet who overcame long-established social prejudices to become a well-known, very successful writer. She was a free-thinker in a time when it was not encouraged in women!
She was interested in social justice, and women’s suffrage, keeping company with many revolutionary-thinking individuals, including, for example, Karl Marx.
Not all her work was politically-inspired, as evidenced in ‘Autumn Tints’ (above). She did however, view the oppression of nature in a similar light to that of women.
During the 1870s and 1880s her reputation as a poet increased, and she became a familiar name in London literary society.
She died in 1896 leaving behind a large body of work. She is best remembered for ‘The Ascent of Man’ which she wrote from the feminist point of view in response to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Although she excelled in many areas, writing all kinds of treatises on current thought —her own, and other people’s — translations, biographies, a novel, it was poetry that was gave her the most literary satisfaction as evidenced by what she wrote to a friend: “My only real intense life has been for a long time in writing, and when I cannot swim and float about in the enchanted waters of poetry I am like a fish out of water. I gasp and pant for want of the proper element to breathe in.”
Although it’s not always easy to work it out, it’s good to know what most speaks to you, what most feeds your creativity.
My own creativity is always refreshed by reading the creative works of others — especially some of the classic poems, knowing they were written in a different world at a different time, with a different mindset.
*This poem is in the public domain. Stuff you need to know about the use of other people’s work.
My favourite classic poem:
Smiling in the mirror can help too:
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