Autumn: A Dirge | ISC Class 11 Elective English Notes

This note covers Percy Bysshe Shelley's Autumn: A Dirge, its title, stanza summaries, the dying Year, the mourning Months, natural imagery, poetic devices, rhyme, themes, key quotations and close reading.

Who wrote the poem, and what does its title mean?

About the author and the text

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Autumn: A Dirge. It was published by Mrs Shelley in Posthumous Poems in 1824. Posthumous means published after the author's death. This publication detail concerns the poem's appearance in print, rather than identifying an event represented within it.

The poem presents the declining year through the language of death and mourning. A dirge is a song or poem of lamentation, meaning an expression of grief, especially associated with a funeral. The title therefore supplies both a season and a way of responding to that season.

Autumn identifies the seasonal setting. The fading sun, bare branches and dying flowers make that setting visible. The second part of the title turns these changes into an occasion for grief, so that the landscape becomes more than a description of weather.

Who speaks?

The speaker, meaning the voice heard within the poem, observes the natural scene and calls upon the Months to mourn. The speaker has no given name or personal history. Distinguishing this voice from the author avoids treating every imagined action as an autobiographical fact.

The Months are asked to dress sadly, follow the dead Year and keep watch. These instructions give the speaker the role of directing a funeral. The poem's emotional force comes from its treatment of a familiar seasonal change as the loss of a living presence.

Its tone, the attitude conveyed by the voice, is sorrowful and insistent. Its mood, the atmosphere experienced by the reader, is bleak and mournful. Commands keep the lament active: the speaker asks for participation, rather than merely recording sadness.

What happens in the poem's stanza-by-stanza summary?

A stanza is a group of lines forming a unit within a poem. Autumn: A Dirge has two stanzas of eleven lines each. Both move from changes in nature to instructions for mourning the Year.

Stanza one: the Year lies on her death-bed

The sun's warmth is failing. The cold, exposed landscape seems to make sounds of grief: the wind wails and the bare branches sigh. Pale flowers are dying. These opening details establish loss through diminished warmth, absent leaves and fading plant life.

The Year is imagined as a female figure lying on the earth. The earth is her death-bed, the bed on which someone dies. Dead leaves form her shroud, a cloth used to wrap a dead body. Natural materials become parts of a funeral scene.

The speaker then summons the Months from November to May. They must appear in their saddest array, meaning clothing or dress, and follow the Year's bier, a stand or framework that supports a dead body or coffin.

The stanza ends by asking the Months to watch beside her sepulchre, meaning a tomb or burial place. They are compared to dim shadows. The movement is from a dying landscape to the imagined vigil, or period of watchfulness, beside the dead Year.

Stanza two: the funeral continues through storm and withdrawal

Cold rain falls, a worm affected by the cold crawls, rivers swell and thunder sounds. Thunder becomes the funeral bell for the Year. The cheerful swallows have flown away, while each lizard has gone to its dwelling. The scene combines movement with the withdrawal of familiar living creatures.

The speaker repeats the call to the Months. Their clothing is now specified as white, black and grey. They are told to allow their light sisters to play, while they themselves follow the dead Year. The contrast separates the mourners from a more cheerful group.

Finally, the Months must make the Year's grave green through repeated tears. Mourning remains the explicit action. The greenness may suggest continuing life, but the ending does not narrate the Year's return to life. It leaves grief and an image of growth together.

The two stanzas therefore form a connected lament. The first establishes the dead Year and her mourners; the second renews the summons and ends with their continuing care for her grave.

How is the Year turned into a figure at a funeral?

From a period of time to a female presence

Personification gives human qualities or actions to something non-human or abstract. The Year is personified as female through the repeated reference to her. A period of time becomes a being who can lie dying, be carried to burial and receive the attention of mourners.

This choice gives seasonal decline a personal shape. Rather than listing changes without an emotional connection, the poem gathers them around one central loss. The fading sun and dying flowers belong to the same imagined scene as the Year's death-bed and grave.

The capital letter in Year helps distinguish this imagined presence from an ordinary reference to the calendar. The Months also receive capitals. Together they become participants in an action that can be pictured, even though they remain divisions of time.

How the funeral image develops

A metaphor describes one thing in terms of another without an explicit comparison using like or as. Here the earth functions as a death-bed and fallen leaves as a shroud. These connections carry the funeral idea across several lines.

An extended metaphor is a comparison sustained through connected details. The death-bed, shroud, bier, sepulchre and grave build such a pattern. Each detail contributes a different part of dying, burial or remembrance, rather than merely repeating a general statement of sorrow.

The shroud is particularly closely tied to the landscape. Leaves already belong to the autumn scene; imagining them as a covering for the Year gives them an additional human meaning. Their dead condition strengthens the connection between seasonal decay and the body being mourned.

The funeral develops through the speaker's instructions. First the Year lies on the earth; then the Months must follow her bier and watch beside her burial place. The closing request continues their involvement by asking them to tend the grave through tears.

This is an imagined ceremony rather than a realistic account of named human mourners. Its symbolic meaning, meaning the broader significance carried by its concrete images, concerns the passing of time and the experience of loss.

Why does the speaker call upon the Months to mourn?

The direct address

Apostrophe is direct address to an absent person, an abstract idea or something non-human as though it could hear and respond. The call to the Months is apostrophe because the speaker treats divisions of time as listeners who can obey instructions.

The repeated command to come creates urgency. The Months are not passive labels in a calendar: they must assemble, choose their clothing, follow the bier and take their place beside the Year. Their imagined actions extend the personification established by the dying Year.

The named range is November to May. Preserve those endpoints when explaining the summons. The poem's funeral arrangement should not be replaced by a different group of months merely because that group seems more familiar as a season.

Mourning dress and the light sisters

The first stanza asks for the saddest clothing. The second makes this instruction more concrete with white, black and grey. These colours create a subdued appearance within the poem's scene. They need not be assigned separate, fixed meanings to explain their collective effect.

The light sisters form a contrasting group who may play. In context, light suggests a cheerful or carefree quality. They can be read as the other, more joyful months, although the poem does not name each sister individually.

Contrast places different qualities beside one another so that each becomes clearer. The sisters' play makes the mourners' duty feel more solemn. Joy exists within the poem's imagined world, but the speaker directs the addressed Months towards the funeral.

The Months' shared task also makes mourning collective, meaning carried out by a group. They are asked to accompany the Year and remain attentive to her grave. The loss receives an organised response rather than a single isolated cry.

At the same time, the commands reveal the speaker's involvement. The voice does not simply stand outside the scene and describe it. By assigning actions to the Months, it shapes the ceremony through which the Year's passing is acknowledged.

How does natural imagery create the poem's atmosphere?

Imagery is language that evokes sensory experience. Shelley combines sights, sounds, temperature and movement. These details make the landscape tangible while linking its changes to the emotional pattern of mourning.

Sight and temperature

The bare branches and pale flowers create visual imagery, which appeals to sight. Bare suggests the absence of leaves; pale suggests diminished colour and vitality. Together they make the landscape appear depleted, rather than full of vigorous growth.

The failing warmth of the sun is followed by a bleak wind and chill rain. These details evoke the sensation of cold. The movement between warmth and chill strengthens the impression that a more comfortable or lively condition is passing away.

The worm is nipped, meaning pinched or affected by the cold. It still crawls. That distinction matters: the poem describes discomfort and reduced vitality without saying that every creature in the landscape has died.

Sound and movement

Auditory imagery appeals to hearing. Wailing wind, sighing branches and knelling thunder form a sequence of mournful sounds. Knelling means sounding like a bell associated with death or a funeral. The weather supplies the sound of the imagined ceremony.

The rivers swell and the rain falls, so the scene is not motionless. Movement continues even while the Year is imagined as dead. This combination gives the lament energy: the world remains active around the figure being mourned.

The blithe, or cheerful, swallows have flown away. The lizards have gone to their dwellings. The absence or retreat of these creatures deepens the atmosphere of withdrawal. Neither statement requires an added explanation about their destination or biological behaviour.

How sensory details work together

The poem's atmosphere emerges from the combination of its details. Pale flowers, cold rain and funeral-like thunder reinforce one another because each contributes to an impression of diminished life and grief. An isolated detail would not create the same sustained effect.

The final green grave adds a different colour to this scene. Its possible association with growth becomes noticeable because so much earlier imagery concerns cold, bareness and death. Yet it remains a grave, so the new colour complicates the mourning rather than removing it.

Which poetic devices are important, and where do they occur?

Human feeling in the natural world

In stanza one, personification appears both in the dying Year and in the wind and branches behaving like mourners. The Months' clothing and funeral duties continue it across both stanzas. This device joins separate natural details into a shared human ceremony.

Pathetic fallacy is the attribution of human emotion to nature. The wailing wind and sighing branches invite the reader to hear grief in weather and vegetation. It is useful here because it identifies the emotional aspect of the broader personification.

A simile makes an explicit comparison, often using like or as. At the end of stanza one, the Months are compared to dim shadows. The comparison makes their watchfulness seem faint, subdued and almost without physical substance.

Patterned language

Alliteration repeats consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words. The phrase about bare boughs, or branches, in the second line repeats the initial b sound. The final line's grave and green repeat the initial g sound, linking burial and greenness through sound.

Repetition returns to a word or phrase. The summons to the Months and the direction to follow the dead Year recur in both stanzas. These returns make the poem feel ceremonial and keep the funeral central as the surrounding details change.

A refrain is a recurring line or group of words in a poem or song. The repeated summons works like a refrain. Its return binds the two stanzas and encourages the reader to hear the poem as a lament with recurring responses.

Line endings and connected meaning

Enjambment occurs when a sentence or phrase continues across a line ending without completing its sense there. In stanza one, the introduction of the Year continues through the death-bed description before reaching the statement that she is lying there.

That delayed completion directs attention to the central figure and her covering. The reader must carry the sense across the lines. The short line naming the Year stands out within the longer description and makes her the focus of the surrounding natural changes.

These devices should be connected to their effects. Naming personification explains how time becomes a mourner or a body; naming repetition explains the recurring funeral call. The value of a device lies in the meaning and feeling it helps create.

How do rhyme and stanza structure shape the lament?

Rhyme is a correspondence of sounds, commonly at word endings. End rhyme links words at the ends of lines, while internal rhyme links words within a line. Shelley uses both, so listening only to line endings misses part of the poem's music.

Internal echoes and the end-rhyme scheme

In stanza one, failing and wailing rhyme within the opening line. Sighing and dying form another pair in the next line, while bed and dead echo within the death-bed description. The internal pattern connects physical decline with the sounds and objects of mourning.

In stanza two, falling and crawling form an internal pair; swelling and knelling form another. These echoes bind different activities together. Rain, the worm, the rivers and thunder become elements of one coordinated description, rather than a disconnected list.

A rhyme scheme records line-ending sound patterns using letters. Each new letter identifies a new end sound; repeated letters identify a matching sound. In the notation below, A, B, C, D, E and F are sound labels, not abbreviations for words.

Stanza two follows ABCDBEEECCC: crawling, knelling, Year, gone, dwelling, away, gray, play, bier, Year, tear. The spelling gray belongs to the quoted line-ending sequence; grey is the usual British spelling in explanation.

Stanza one's endings are wailing, dying, Year, dead, lying, away, May, array, bier, Year, sepulchre. Its clear rhyme pattern is ABCDBEEECCF when the final word is distinguished from the Year group. Sepulchre provides an imperfect closing echo rather than a straightforward exact rhyme.

If that final echo is grouped with Year and bier, the broader pattern may be represented as ABCDBEEECCC, but the qualification matters. Near rhyme means an incomplete sound correspondence. Do not describe sepulchre and Year as an unqualified perfect rhyme.

The movement of the stanzas

Each stanza begins with five lines of description and then turns to the summons and funeral directions. The changing line lengths alternate extended descriptions with brief phrases. Rhythm, the movement of stressed and unstressed syllables, helps the lament shift between flowing description and concentrated calls.

The repeated sounds make the dirge musical, while the repeated instructions make it communal. The second stanza's final tear rhyme also brings the closing sound directly into the emotional action of weeping.

What themes and message emerge from the poem?

Passing time and mortality

A theme is a central idea developed through a text. Here the Year's death connects the passage of time with mortality, the condition of being subject to death. Seasonal change becomes a way to imagine an ending that calls for attention and grief.

The movement from warmth and flowers towards cold and bareness gives this theme concrete form. The funeral image intensifies it: the Year is not merely finishing as a calendar period but is treated as a presence whose disappearance matters to those around her.

Nature and human sorrow

The poem joins the external landscape to an inward emotional response. Wind, branches and thunder seem to express grief, while leaves provide the Year's burial covering. This correspondence makes sorrow appear to extend across the natural world.

The connection is created by poetic language. Hearing a wind as a mourner's cry is an act of imagination, not proof that weather possesses human feelings. The poem's strength lies in making the emotional interpretation vivid and coherent.

Shared mourning and remembrance

The Months are called together and given duties. Following, watching and weeping turn grief into a sequence of shared actions. The poem therefore presents mourning as an act of accompaniment: the lost Year receives attention both during the procession and at the grave.

The contrast with the playful sisters makes that obligation more visible. The addressed Months must continue their solemn role while another group may play. This contrast gives the funeral emotional seriousness without claiming that joy has disappeared from the whole imagined world.

A possible persistence of life within loss

The final greenness may suggest that life continues around death. Tears, the sign of sorrow, are asked to make the grave green. This creates a possible link between grief and growth, while preserving the physical image of a burial place.

The interpretation should remain tentative, meaning offered with appropriate uncertainty. The poem gives an instruction, not an account of its fulfilment. It does not show the Year rising, promise a particular future season or explicitly declare that sorrow will end.

The poem's message can therefore be understood as an invitation to recognise passing beauty and give loss a serious response. Any suggestion of renewal belongs within that lament. The ending supports a complex response rather than a simple replacement of sadness by happiness.

Which key quotations support close reading?

Close reading means explaining how particular words and patterns produce meaning. The following short quotations are spoken by the poem's unnamed voice. Each can support a focused interpretation when its immediate context and precise wording remain clear.

The scene becomes a funeral

“the bleak wind is wailing”

Speaker and context: The unnamed speaker describes the opening landscape in stanza one. The wind's sound becomes a cry of grief. The phrase supports an explanation of personification, auditory imagery and the mournful atmosphere.

“in a shroud of leaves dead”

Speaker and context: In stanza one, the speaker describes the Year's covering. Fallen leaves take the place of a burial cloth. The quotation connects the natural setting to the extended funeral metaphor.

“like dim shadows”

Speaker and context: At the end of stanza one, the Months are instructed to watch beside the Year's tomb. The explicit comparison makes their presence seem faint and subdued, strengthening the solemnity of the vigil.

The summons and the ending

“Come, Months, come away”

Speaker and context: The speaker addresses the Months in both stanzas. The repeated command combines apostrophe with the effect of a refrain. It moves the poem from observation to an organised act of mourning.

“the thunder is knelling”

Speaker and context: In stanza two, thunder is heard as a funeral bell for the Year. The quotation intensifies the sound of mourning and continues the transformation of weather into a funeral ceremony.

“make her grave green with tear on tear”

Speaker and context: The final instruction asks the Months to continue weeping. Greenness may suggest growth, but the grave and repeated tears keep death and sorrow present. The command must not be turned into a definite promise of resurrection, or return from death to life.

How can a critical appreciation answer connect detail and meaning?

A critical appreciation is a reasoned account of how a literary work creates meaning and effect. For this poem, a useful central claim is that Shelley turns seasonal decline into a funeral through personification, sensory language and recurring commands.

Build an interpretation from the poem's movement

Begin with the title's link between autumn and lamentation. Then explain how the opening changes in nature lead to the Year on her death-bed. This order shows the reader how the poem develops its central image instead of presenting unrelated device names.

Next connect the Months' appearance and actions with the funeral idea. Their summons, clothing, procession and watchfulness give the scene participants and movement. The second stanza renews these duties after introducing rain, thunder and the withdrawal of birds and lizards.

Discuss sound as part of that movement. Internal rhymes join the natural details, while the recurring summons gives the lament a repeated call. The short references to the Year concentrate attention on the figure for whom the whole ceremony takes place.

Keep the conclusion proportionate to the evidence

A textual inference is an interpretation drawn from words in the text rather than explicitly stated by them. Reading the green grave as a suggestion of continuing life is such an inference. Explain the supporting image and preserve the uncertainty of the conclusion.

A personal response can recognise the tenderness of the final request: the Months are asked to care for the grave through mourning. That response remains grounded in their specified action. It does not require an invented personal bereavement, historical occasion or hidden identity for the Year.

A connected appreciation thus moves from the title to the landscape, from the landscape to the funeral, and from the funeral to the ending's ambiguity. Ambiguity means openness to more than one supported interpretation; here sorrow and possible growth coexist.

Glossary

• Dirge — A song or poem of mourning, especially one associated with death and a funeral.
• Bleak — Cold, exposed and cheerless, describing the wind's quality in the opening landscape.
• Boughs — The larger branches of a tree, presented here as bare and sighing.
• Shroud — A covering used to wrap a dead body, imagined here as fallen leaves.
• Array — Clothing or dress, used here for the Months' sad appearance as mourners.
• Bier — A stand or framework supporting a dead body or coffin before burial.
• Sepulchre — A tomb or burial place beside which the Months are told to watch.
• Nipped — Pinched or affected by cold, describing the condition of the crawling worm.
• Knelling — Sounding like a bell associated with death, applied to the thunder in stanza two.
• Blithe — Cheerful and carefree, describing the swallows whose departure contributes to the sense of loss.
• Dwelling — A place in which a creature lives, where each lizard has gone.
• Ye — An older form of you, used in addressing the Months as a group.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Autumn is a named woman whose actual funeral is described. Correct: The Year is personified as female; the landscape becomes an imagined funeral scene.
• Misconception: The speaker summons only November and December. Correct: The stated range runs from November to May, and both endpoints should be preserved.
• Misconception: The poem says that the swallows, lizards and worm have died. Correct: The swallows have flown away, the lizards have gone to their dwellings and the cold-affected worm crawls.
• Misconception: The speaker orders the light sisters to attend the funeral. Correct: The sisters may play, while the addressed Months must follow the bier.
• Misconception: The green grave proves that the Year is resurrected. Correct: The final command may suggest growth, but the poem does not depict resurrection or guarantee renewal.
• Misconception: Every line ending rhymes perfectly with another. Correct: Some endings remain distinct, and sepulchre offers an imperfect echo rather than an exact rhyme with Year.
• Misconception: The poem directly explains a particular personal loss in Shelley's life. Correct: Its stated subject is the dying Year; a specific autobiographical occasion cannot be established from these lines.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. A dirge is a funeral lament. In Shelley's poem, the Year lies on the earth as a death-bed and dead leaves cover her as a shroud. Explain two ways these details justify the title Autumn: A Dirge. [2 marks]

1. The dying Year makes seasonal decline resemble a death that calls for mourning.
2. The earth and leaf covering become funeral objects, giving the autumn landscape the character of a lament.

Q2. The speaker says, “Come, Months, come away”. Apostrophe addresses something absent or non-human as if it can respond. Explain the apostrophe and the effect of the repeated word come. [2 marks]

1. The Months are addressed as listeners able to respond, so the command uses apostrophe.
2. Repeating come makes the summons insistent and urges the Months to join the speaker's imagined action.

Q3. In stanza one, the Year lies on an earthly death-bed, wears dead leaves as a shroud, and receives mourners who follow her bier and watch beside her tomb. An extended metaphor develops a comparison through linked details. Explain this extended funeral metaphor in three points. [3 marks]

1. The earthly death-bed turns the Year from an abstract period of time into a female figure approaching or undergoing death.
2. The leaf shroud makes part of the natural landscape serve as a burial covering, connecting seasonal decay with the funeral.
3. The bier, mourners and tomb extend the comparison into procession and watchfulness, so the image develops beyond the initial death-bed.

Q4. In stanza two, rain is chill, a cold-affected worm crawls, rivers swell, thunder sounds like a funeral bell, swallows have flown away and lizards have gone to their dwellings. Explain in four points how these details create the atmosphere. [4 marks]

1. The chill rain establishes an uncomfortable, cold setting that contributes to the bleak emotional atmosphere.
2. The worm continues crawling despite the cold, making diminished vitality visible without presenting all creatures as dead.
3. Swelling rivers keep the scene active, while the funeral-like thunder turns natural sound into an expression of mourning.
4. The swallows' departure and the lizards' withdrawal create a sense of absence, reinforcing the landscape's subdued quality.

Q5. The Months from November to May must wear sad clothing, specified later as white, black and grey. They must follow the dead Year and watch beside her tomb, while their light sisters may play. Explain the role of the Months in five points, using only these details. [5 marks]

1. The Months become human-like participants who can dress, follow and watch, turning divisions of time into members of a funeral gathering.
2. The specified range from November to May identifies the addressed mourners and must be retained when describing the group assembled by the speaker.
3. Their sad dress and subdued colours give grief a visible form, making the mourners' appearance consistent with the death they acknowledge.
4. Following the Year and watching beside her tomb present mourning as shared accompaniment and continuing attention, rather than a momentary expression of feeling.
5. The playful sisters contrast with these solemn duties, allowing cheerfulness elsewhere in the imagined scene while emphasising the addressed Months' responsibility to mourn.

Q6. The poem ends by asking the mourning Months to “make her grave green with tear on tear”. Explain the ending in five points. Distinguish what the command explicitly asks from any possible suggestion of renewal. [5 marks]

1. The speaker explicitly asks the Months to weep repeatedly, making sustained mourning the immediate action at the close of the poem.
2. The grave keeps the dead female figure at the centre of attention; the ending does not simply leave burial behind for an unrelated cheerful scene.
3. The requested greenness links tears with a visible change at the burial place, giving sorrow an imagined effect on the surrounding ground.
4. Greenness may suggest growth or continuing life, allowing a cautious interpretation of renewal alongside the more directly stated act of grief.
5. Because this is a command rather than a report of fulfilment, it does not establish that resurrection occurs or that the mourners' sorrow certainly ends.

Q7. Stanza one's opening pairs failing with wailing and sighing with dying within individual lines. Both stanzas repeat the call to the Months. Internal rhyme means matching sounds within a line; a refrain is recurring wording in a poem or song. Explain these sound effects in three points. [3 marks]

1. The paired words create internal rhyme, giving the opening description a musical pattern within its lines rather than solely at their endings.
2. The echoes connect decline with grieving sounds: failing accompanies wailing, and the description of dying is linked to sighing.
3. The returning call works like a refrain, joining the stanzas through a recognisable summons and helping the poem sound like a repeated lament.

Q8. In stanza one, the Months are told to watch beside the Year's tomb “like dim shadows”. A simile explicitly compares things using like or as. Explain the comparison and its contribution to the atmosphere in three points. [3 marks]

1. The word like explicitly compares the watching Months to dim shadows, making the phrase a simile rather than a literal description.
2. The shadows suggest a faint and insubstantial presence, helping the reader picture the mourners as subdued figures beside the tomb.
3. This quiet watchfulness reinforces the solemn atmosphere of the burial scene, making their continued attention seem sorrowful rather than lively or celebratory.

Key takeaways

• Autumn: A Dirge transforms seasonal decline into a funeral for the Year, personified as a female figure.
• Both eleven-line stanzas move from descriptions of nature to a summons and instructions for the mourning Months.
• The earth, leaves, bier and grave sustain a funeral metaphor that gives passing time a visible human form.
• Wind, branches and thunder seem to participate in grief through their wailing, sighing and funeral-like sound.
• The Months from November to May mourn, while their light sisters provide a contrast through their permission to play.
• Internal rhyme and repeated commands give the poem musical continuity and the recurring movement of a lament.
• The final green grave may suggest continuing life, but the poem does not explicitly promise resurrection or an end to sorrow.
• Strong interpretation connects particular words to their effects and distinguishes direct statements from tentative symbolic readings.

Test yourself

The title calls the poem a dirge, or funeral lament. What attitude towards autumn does that word establish?

It frames autumn as an occasion for mourning, rather than merely a season to describe.

The Year is described as female, dying and receiving funeral honours. Which device gives a period of time these human qualities?

Personification turns the abstract Year into a human-like figure whose death can be mourned.

Dead leaves serve as the Year's shroud. What connection does this make?

It connects natural autumn decay with the covering used for a dead body.

The summons names the Months from November to May. What range should a summary preserve?

It should preserve November to May, rather than substitute a different seasonal range.

The addressed Months mourn while their light sisters may play. What effect does this contrast create?

The sisters' cheerfulness makes the addressed Months' solemn mourning duties stand out more clearly.

Thunder is described as knelling, a sound associated with a funeral bell. How does this develop the setting?

It makes the weather supply the sound of the imagined funeral for the Year.

The final line requests a green grave watered by tears. Why should an interpretation of renewal remain tentative?

Greenness may suggest life, but the line is an instruction and does not describe the Year's resurrection.

Failing and wailing occur within the same opening line. What kind of rhyme do they illustrate?

They illustrate internal rhyme, because the matching sounds occur within a single line.