In the poem "Autumn," Alice Cary utilizes various literary devices, namely imagery, symbolism, and diction, to convey the speaker's observation of changing seasons, while also rendering the speaker's internal thoughts about the memories associated with the seasons she has been through, ultimately revealing the how love and memories live on through time, and how one should deal with changes in their life.

Cary starts by having the speaker recognizing the change in how she perceives the time in a day, signifying a new period of the year and how it will affect her emotions. The change can be seen in how the days are getting "[s]horter and shorter," with the intentional repetition to emphasize that very fact. The speaker recognizes that the "warmer air," with "warmer" indicates that the air is from the summer, is slowly dissappearing from her daily life. Even when the signs of autumn in the air are so clear, it still takes time for the speaker to fully adjust to this change, as seen in how the she still comtemplates about the "Summer" (with the letter "S" capitalized, signifying how summer is more than just a season for her). It is clear that autumn is with her, and in fact, she lies on "pillows of the yellow leaves," a visualized and tangible image that shows how autumn is now a reality, and yet she still "tries the old tunes over for an hour." "An hour" is a long time, and trying the "old tunes" suggests that there is something very important for her in the past, so important that she does not want to forget, and it could not leave her mind. The first two stanzas of the poem set up the context for the onset of autumn, and how the speaker appears to be trapped in time, with the summer, which will then be explored as the poem goes on. 

Time has changed, but a person's heart remains, that is the case with the speaker. The speaker talks about "[t]he wind, whose tender whisper in the May," revealing that the "old tunes" have brought her mind back to this month of May, the moment her memories started. It marks the start of a time of her life that is filled with the blooming, yet "cold and unsuccessful love." The word choice of "cold" and "unsuccessful" seems to be contradicting with "all the young blooms," but its function really highlights the dynamics of love. Sometimes it could be sensational like "[t]he rose [that] has taken off her tire of red," with the color "red" representing love; and sometimes, it could be "against earth's chilly bosom, witched with frost," in which the diction shows how the beauty of love could be "against" and "witched," proving how love can flutuates like "the proud meadow-pink hang[ing] down." Seeing seasons changing reminds the speaker of how love appears the same. Love appears beautiful at first, sometimes there are ups-and-downs, but at one point it could make one party feel solitary. Because why can love be "busy all the June," that moment in time when the hearts are in the "golden tune," has now "given place to the brown cricket." The sudden change from spring to summer also takes away the precious time the speaker could have been together with her other half, but unfortunately, everything was "busy," the word choice that gives away hints of an unsatisfying situation. It leaves the speaker in solitude, like the "very cock crows lonesomely at morn;" if "lonesomely" is not enough for convey the speaker's feeling, it is accompanied with "crows" which represents the speaker's yearning for a fulfilled love. The change in seasons is complex; everytime it happens, it reminds the speaker of the old memories, the "old tunes," and what could have been like an harmony. Everytime a new season comes, the speaker borrows the characteristics of it, whether it be the wind, the cricket, or the cock, to speak up the mind, conveying the emotions deep inside the heart. 

But the speaker knows her life is more beautiful than that; she knows her life can be filled with poems and songs. The speaker realizes if she opens her heart and welcomes all of the changes to her life, it will only result in more sadness. Because she has been through it for a lot of times, she has seen all the seasons changed, all the memories made, and all the solitude left behind. She has come to a conclusion that this world is a "withered world," a deliberate word choice to illustrate how she perceives the world as evil and monochromatic, and that she should protect herself from it. She should "shut up the door." "Shut up" is the diction that is firm, and determined, showing the speaker's enlightenment of her self-worth. The changing seasons and the memories associated with each has made the speaker a stronger version of herself, who now loves herself more than anybody else. But that does not mean she does not welcome anyone into her heart anymore. Just like how she has accepted the change in seasons, she has learned how to approach the changes in her life. For those "who loves [her]," they have been told to "not look" upon what she considered the unhappy world, because for her, a happy world is where the "light candle," the "story-book" would "live with [her] the poetry of Spring." A poem named "Autumn" ends with "Spring," because the word "Spring" itself represents the youth, and the beauty of life. And let it be eternal! Why let the emotions and thoughts be dictated by the changing seasons, when everyday could be filled by the poetry of Spring? Cary put a resolved ending to the internal struggle of the speaker as she observes the changing seasons: her enlightenment and recognition of self-worth.