To Autumn
Preparation
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Text
To Autumn
by John Keats
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 mossed 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-brimmed their clammy cells.
II
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-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd 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.
III
Where are the songs of spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast music too -
While barrèd 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 the garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Comments
Ksana, your poem is just
Ksana, your poem is just amazing. I'm from Chile and autumn was so sad there. Always gray and cold so since I could move I choose a country like yours, always summer and it's great. Not thinking of getting a cold during rainy season and even doing wathever I have to do down the rain. Greetings from Panama.
i am living in a country
i am living in a country without changing seasons, it's summer all the time, so you can wear spaghetti throughout the years. Hot and humid, affected greatly by monsoon.
SInce thousand years ago, most chinese poets love to paint autumn into sober and melancholy colors using passive emotion...unlike westerns.Of course, I have some difficulties in this poem due to unfamiliar terms, but it gives me a feeling that, Keats really did like the season.
"Think not of them, thou hast music too"
Is very positive. We all have our own potentials.
Although i never experienced autumn, however, from my own imaginations, i did write something about it out from nothing. In fact, this was my old leisure word puzzle, not a correct ode, i never learn how to write one...
Ode to Autumn ( Ode on Adieu )
（1）
The leaves bid farewell forever to the tree
and fall without regret
so definite, so determined
without a curse to gravity
without a blame to nature
For what’s behind, I see love
No odium, for it’s love
To let the tree survive the winter
Nourished by decay
There’s no reason of delay
（2）
Chrysanthemums, share its yellow
with chlorophyll-depleted leave
And pansies, “now purple with love's wound”,
like Bard once said, love in idle, I mourn
All these give a riot of color for autumn
a season of heartbreaking, for those alone
（3）
There is big smile shown on farmers’ face
all the hard work in spring have been paid
Flock of Barnacle Geese flies across the bluish sky
When we were small we used to wonder why
We lit up the joy of Halloween night
Carving Jack O’ lantern with little knife
On small muddy path, your bicycle traced out faint furrow
Full of happiness, we don’t understand what of sorrow
（4）
You step slowly and gently on dried leaves
and the crackling sound make a melancholy staccato only I notice,
or is it my heart, too frail which break into pieces, singing?
The way you said good bye
just like what it was every night
The wind blows without mercy,
the leaves wander, so my mind
I can only helplessly stand aside
and see you out of my sight
In this season of yellow, I grieve into marrow
For we have no
another morrow.
（5）
If the deciduous tree has a soul, will he give me a sigh?
For a love hasn’t bloomed, has died.