To Autumn, John Keats

[lonetree]

Since it is now my favorite time of the year, and soon to be the Canadian Thanksgiving(Oct. 12) I thought that I would put forth this favorite of mine.

 

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, –

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."

Edited September 29, 2015 by lonetree

[lonetree]

Here is an article that samples a few seasonal lines by some est'd English and American poets. I am not familiar with Mr Riley and believe that John Clare wrote more than one poem entitled 'Autumn'.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/28/autumn-poems_n_1921813.html

[Guest MormonGator]

I love Keats. The best of the English Romantics, bar none. I am not a fan of Lord Byron, but I admire his poetry. 

[lonetree]

I love Keats. The best of the English Romantics, bar none. I am not a fan of Lord Byron, but I admire his poetry. 

 

Keats was a favorite of mine when I was a teenager. I remember trying to read the whole of 'Endymion' and make sense of it back then. His 'heavy' classical stuff no longer attracts me, but poems like 'To Autumn' and 'La Belle Dame sans Merci' remain...

 

Thanx to Lord Byron, I have memorised at least two lines of the English Romantics:

 

"She walks in beauty like the night,

Of cloudless climes and starry skies,..." :)

 

Actually-now that I recollect, there is one other(poem),

 

"The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,..."

 

Such a gifted artist...Thank you for calling this to mind.

Edited October 9, 2015 by lonetree

[Guest MormonGator]

 

 

Such a gifted artist...Thank you for calling this to mind.

Oh no problem my friend. I could talk for hours about this. My favorite poets are TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and of course, my obsession-Emliy Dickinson. 

Obviously I prefer the modernists (Eliot and Pound) to any other style. That said, good confessional poetry like Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton is also quite good.   

[lonetree]

Oh no problem my friend. I could talk for hours about this. My favorite poets are TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and of course, my obsession-Emliy Dickinson. 

Obviously I prefer the modernists (Eliot and Pound) to any other style. That said, good confessional poetry like Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton is also quite good.   

 

Dickinson's autumnal thoughts welcome. :)

[Guest MormonGator]

Dickinson's autumnal thoughts welcome. :)

 Usually, when Dickinson is writing about autumn she is talking about death. Her life was marred by tragedy and her death poetry is among her most beautiful and insightful. 

[lonetree]

 Usually, when Dickinson is writing about autumn she is talking about death. Her life was marred by tragedy and her death poetry is among her most beautiful and insightful. 

Thank you for this. Good to know.

[Guest MormonGator]

Thank you for this. Good to know.

 You are welcome. Remember, it's just my opinion and it's all very subjective.