Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field’s edge a daisy lives alone;
A last shawl of burning lies
On a gray field-stone.
All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.
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The many poetic devices (imagery, metaphor, end rhyme, etc) used have made this a great poem to use for teaching high school students. Short, compact poetry has always appealed to me. I’ve never viewed Mr. Wilbur as a “light-weight” as the biography suggests, but rather a concentrate! Besides living in the deep south does not allow for a slow “exeunt” of autumn. Leaves change from green to dead overnight.
Thanks to Mr. Wilbur for continuing the vision of nature that Frost and his contemporaries established.