To Autumn, Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

I am not a summer girl. I wilt in the summer. Fall is my season. I was born in the fall. With the first breath of crispness in the air, I start to regulate back to my normal self. In honor of it being the first day of fall, here is a little bit of John Keats.

ODE TO AUTUMN
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-eaves 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’erbrimm’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,
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.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy 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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

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2 Responses to To Autumn, Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

  1. Well, I must say, you are a woman after my own heart! Having just discovered your blog tonight, I’ve been scooting around just a bit on it, but even in such a short time I’m noticing so many things we have in common–your love for A. S.Byatt’s fiction (I think we may be the only two people who have read EVERYTHING) (and I even got a perverse kick out of The Biographer’s Tale), an admiration for the film Deliverance (when it came out, I saw it with my best friend and then proceeded to go back, time after time, dragging my siblings, my parents, my friends–everyone I could grab. “You HAVE to see this movie! It is unbelievable! I’ve never seen such suspense in my life!” I think I saw it something like 6 times in the theatre. Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched it on TV. I love to try to figure out how they did it, how they made the decisions they made, how they put it together. I s’pose I’ve got to get the new anniversary DVD, then, eh?), an undying passion for Cary Grant (too much to try to say here, but maybe one word will do the most: Notorious), and now autumn and KEATS??? Holy moly. We must be soul sisters, dear (although I suspect I could be your grandma). Now, if I should find out that you love baseball as much as I do, then we will truly be in some paranormal zone. (Wait. What am I saying? NOBODY loves baseball as much as I do. Fuggeddabahdit.)

    So glad to have found intelligent discussions on great subjects– not so easy to find on the internet these days. I look forward to reading more archives and future dailies, as my too-harried time will permit. Do you like becoming a guilty pleasure and avoidance of The Things I Should Be Doing?

  2. My favorite poem by one of my favorite poets. Have a wonderful autumn, Sheila!

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