Summary of falling leaves by margaret Cole
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Despite the harsh realities that fit the historic context of November 1915, the poem, which can be read in full here, is a very calming piece. It follows a loose rhyming pattern; each line has a rhyming line that follows three lines later, resetting after six lines. The poem discusses a narrator who watches as leaves fall from a tree. There is no breeze as the leaves fall, so they simply drop to the ground to join a vast array of dead leaves on the ground. Given the historic nature of the poem (and the preface, “November 1915”), it is likely that the fallen leaves represent soldiers of war, who fall, one by one, only to collapse into a field of bodies (or perhaps a list of the dead) so vast their names, identities, and even physical bodies are simply lost forever.
The poem references “for thinking of a gallant multitude,” which ties in a very sad theme connecting the poem to the frenzy of excitement for the war that might well have been the last positive things felt by the vast fields of the dead. The poem describes them as having died, “like snowflakes wiping out the noon.” This too is a very telling image — it depicts a scene of winter where, in the afternoon, the warmest time of day, snow begins to fall. The glorious metaphorical summer turns to a bitter winter as snowflakes start to fall — except instead of snowflakes, it is the bodies of soldiers that are covering the fields.
The snowflakes metaphor appears again near the end of the poem. The winter analogies can be interpreted two ways; generally the silent, white blanket of snow is an image used as a metaphor for peacetime. Otherwise, it is indicative of the cold winter that essentially smothers and ends a great deal of plant life. The meaning seems to be dual here; for every snowflake, every body on the field, another unique life’s struggle has ended, and the calm wording of the poem almost makes it seem as though the fields are peaceful. Alternatively, the image conjured by snowflakes is one made of a great many flakes, and it is a fitting analogy to point out exactly how many people have died fighting the war even as early in as 1915.
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