To Autumn Analysis

I
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.

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-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.

III
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.

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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 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 cell.
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 twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

| Posted on 2009-08-25 | by a guest

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The post on 2009-4-10 might have had some cogent commentary, but I missed since I turned off when the guest called "To Autumn" a sonnet. Certainly the young Romantics, including Keats, played with poetic forms and made them their own--but a poem of three eleven line stanzas does not a sonnet make.

| Posted on 2009-04-29 | by a guest

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Jannelle C.'s 2 cents worth of John Keats' "To Autumn"
So it is, another Autumn poem. The subject of Autumn has not fallen short of attention to write about by so many a great poets-although varying in styles, tones and ways of expression. Ecclesiastes alone in the Bible speaks of season and most famous for the line "...For everything there is a season..." Another famous one is Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 which speaks of Autumn in particular. John Keats in this sonnet gives a lively and vivid description of the autumn season and evokes beautiful imagery which his choice of language provides. Through his choice of language, imagery and structuring we are able to relate more and gain insight of Autumn as a human condition of ageing, physical maturity or the advanced stage of one's life rather than just it being a phenomenal passing of or change in season.
Two things can be considered when reading this poem that will render a beautiful meaning to and clearer understanding of it. First is a literal interpretation which the Ode's rich imagery provide as described in the scenry-"mellow fruitfulness", plump hazel shells or ripened fruits which are signs of the particular season. The other would be a more meaningful and deeper interpretation by considering the figurative value of the imagery and the adjectives and verbs used by Keats... The words "mellow fruitfulness", "maturing sun" or "soft-dying day" gives us a feel of a toned-down state: the complete opposite of how summer would be or would bring: a season of scorching heat, lushness o flora or a feeling of liveliness.
Autumn here is personified by Keats as a doer and giver of the action who conspires with its "close-bossom friend" the sun on how to go about doing its job. This is accomplished by Keats by using the words "bend with the apples", "fill all fruit with ripeness", "to swell the grounds, "plump with hazel shells", "to set budding". All these actions are reminiscent of a person performing these actions.
The words "maturing", "mellow", "ripeness" all play a double meaning which is rich in figurative value. A person who is in the latter stage of his life possesses these qualities of being matured physically, toned-down in lifestyle, more matured in his ways, more mellow in manner or mood which is the opposite of youthfulness, liveliness, physical energy.
It is said in in Ecclessiates "..to everything there is a season..." There is Spring, then summer and then Autumn. So is the human condition of old age, a stage of life succeeding youth and adulthood and a stage preceeding death, the winter of one's life, so to speak.
I hope this helps....I'm too tired typing...I know you get the drift..

| Posted on 2009-04-10 | by a guest

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oh there is no perfect Analysis of this poem no one can do it line by line

| Posted on 2008-12-30 | by a guest

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Analysis and commentary of To Autumn by John Keats

In ‘To Autumn’, a superficial reading would suggest that John Keats writes about a typical day of this season, describing all kind of colourful and detailed images. But before commenting on the meaning of the poem, I will briefly talk about its structure, its type and its rhyme.
The poem is an ode[1] that contains three stanzas, and each of these has eleven lines. With respect to its rhyme, ‘To Autumn’ does not follow a perfect pattern. While the first stanza has an ABABCDEDCCE pattern (see the poem on the next page), the second and the third ones have an ABABCDECDDE pattern. However, it is important to say that a poetic license appears in the third stanza. The word ‘wind’ (line 15) is pronounced [waind] to rhyme with ‘find’.
With regard to the meaning of the poem, as I said above, the author makes an intense description of autumn at least at first sight. The first stanza begins showing this season as misty and fruitful, which, with the help of a ‘maturing sun’, ripens the fruit of the vines. Next, we can see clearly a hyperbole[2]. Keats writes that a tree has so many apples that it bends (line 5), while the gourds swell and the hazel shells plumps. Finally, Keats suggests that the bees have a large amount of flowers. And these flowers did not bud in summer but now, in autumn. As a consequence, the bees are incessantly working and their honeycombs are overflowing since summer.
In the second stanza, there is an evident personification[3]. The poet starts asking a rhetoric question (line 12) to autumn which now is not only a woman but a gleaner. However, this woman is apparently resting in a granary or in the landscape:

‘Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies…’

As she is not working with her hook, some flowers, that were going to be cut, remain untouchable (lines 17 and 18). Also we can see an image of her hair gently moving. The stanza ends with autumn patiently watching the ‘last oozings’ of cider.
The third stanza continues again with rhetoric questions. In the first one Keats asks the woman where the sounds of the spring are. And the second one is just a repetition of the same question. However, the poet tells autumn that she has her own sounds, although some of them are sad:

‘Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn’

On the contrary, the ‘full-grown lambs’ bleat loudly, the crickets sing, a red-breast whistles, and swallows warble in the sky. Keats also describes a day that is dying, ending, and, as a consequence, is getting rose (lines 25 and 26). The last lines of this stanza consist of a combination of the autumn sounds, of the animal sounds (lines from 30 to 33) as I said before few lines above.
To conclude, although my first impression was that John Keats was simply describing the main characteristics of autumn, and the human and animal activities related to it, a deeper reading could suggest that Keats talks about the process of life. Autumn symbolises maturity in human and animal lives. Some instances of this are the ‘full-grown lambs’, the sorrow of the gnats, the wind that lives and dies, and the day that is dying and getting dark. As all we know, the next season is winter, a part of the year that represents aging and death, in other words, the end of life. However, in my opinion, death does not have a negative connotation because Keats enjoys and accepts ‘autumn’ or maturity

| Posted on 2008-02-14 | by a guest