Ode To Autumn

Ode To Autumn

John Keats

1.  

   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.