It is autumn; not without
But within me is the cold.
Youth and spring are all about;
It is I that have grown old.
...
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As with everyone, in nostalgia, Longfellow addresses the twilight of his years.
...so poignant and nicely penned, the poet was in a pensive mood ★
Seems like this may have been written when Longfellow was in his twilight years, or at a time when there was a great deal of turmoil going on in his life.
Here the poet is feeling the load of the of the autumnal landscape and scenery in a retrospective perspective, how will it be the autumn of life? What about the journey which lies it ahead? As the title suggests it the poem is not about the autumn of the outside, but the autumn of the space lying within.