Point of View

“The Tug of Autumn” is written from the perspective of a first-person speaker who allows her reverence for nature to fill her with the desire to grow as a person. As she walks in a silent glade beneath a “cathedral of browning oaks,” she experiences such awe that her mouth hands open, “agape” (2-3). This shows the speaker’s connection to the world around her. Rather than feel a sense of melancholy with the transition of autumn and the coming winter, the speaker instead feels optimistic. She resolves to “be wiser, calmer, / more at home in the world” (7-8). Her perspective does not change over the poem, but rather deepens. Though the speaker enters the glade without any other humans present, she never feels alone. A strong sense of interconnection and harmony settles over her. She expresses a desire to “hold what holds us,” referring...