ode to Autumn

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-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 they 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 a dost keep

Steady they 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 rosy hue;

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.

 

John Keats

 

John Keats, (born October 31, 1795, London, England. Died February 23, 1821, Rome, Papal States [Italy]), died due to of tuberculosis in Rome in 1821 at the age of 25. English Romantic lyric poet who devoted his short life to the perfection of a poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous appeal, and an attempt to express a philosophy through classical legend.

John Keats was an English Romantic lyric poet whose verse is known for its vivid imagery and great sensuous appeal. His reputation grew after his early death, and he was greatly admired in the Victorian Age. His influence can be seen in the poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and the Pre-Raphaelites, among others.

John Keats wrote sonnets, odes, and epics. All his greatest poetry was written in a single year, 1819: “Lamia,” “The Eve of St. Agnes,” the great odes (“On Indolence,” “On a Grecian Urn,” “To Psyche,” “To a Nightingale,” “On Melancholy,” and “To Autumn”), and the two unfinished versions of an epic on Hyperion.

Summary

“To Autumn” is an ode written by John Keats the great English Poet in 1819.  It is one of his most celebrated and well-known work.  His other works on ode are “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” this particular ode describes the autumn season, and its richness and its transition into winter season.  Every description touches the beauty of the season. The poet takes us into the season.

Detail analysis

 

“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.”

 

The season is autumn and it is related to mists with fresh fruits in abundance.  Sun is described as its closest intimate friend.  It gives light, life and helps the plants and fruits to grow.  the poet describes the person who works with the help of the sun to make the fruits to grow and it grow around and over the edges of the farmhouses.  Even the apple trees grows outside the farmhouse due to its overgrowth.  The person and the sun make the growth of the plants complete.

 

All the fruits ripe to the core, the hazel shells grow rich with a sweetest nut inside.  The flowers flow with new buds and growing more.   When these flowers bloom, they are ready to attract the bees. The bees gather to takes the flowers pollen.  Those bees think about the warmth of the season would last forever.  For the summer season brings life to many flowers they give perfect growth for the flowers and they are filled with honey. The beehives too now overflowing with the honey.

 

“Who hath not seen thee oft amid they 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 a dost keep

Steady they laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.”

 

The poet speaks to the autumn, he loves the nature and talks to it.  Who has not seen the autumn which gives a lot in return.  The person who roaming about would sit lazily on the floor where the grain is stored. Your hair would be lifted by a light breeze like a winnowing wind or in the same way the grain is separated from its skin by the harvester. One can be found asleep in the field of incomplete crop, they are tired and sobered due to the aroma of the poppies.   The tools would be lying aside without any work. They don’t have to work, so the next section of the twisted flowers would be saved from harvest.

 

The poet talks to the autumn, as it is his closest friend.  He says autumn is like the agricultural laborer who collects the cutting after the harvest.  The laborer has to be very watchful.  Like this laborer the autumn watches the stream with fruits and leaves.  Again autumn watches the machines which makes the juices the apples for cider observing the way the juice and pulp slowly ooze out of the machine after the hourly procedures.

 

“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 rosy hue;

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.”

 

The poet asks the season a question.  Where are the songs of spring?  Where are the bird song.  He says not to think about the spring and the music it makes. He says that autumn has its own music.  It has its own background with beautiful clouds in the evening sky and the sunlight shines filtering through the clouds and spreads a pink color upon the fields where the harvest is completed.

The music from the gnats which is a mournful hum, spreads along the riverbanks with rise and fall according to the movement of the wind.  The fully grown lamp makes a bled from the hill.  The song of crickets from the bushes and the soft whistles sound of a red breasted bird from a small garden.  The poet concludes the song by saying that growing flock of swallows rise and sing together against the dark sky. 

 

Themes

 

Beauty

The beauty of the autumn is described as a celebration of life.  The season is full of life with summer warmth and sunshine.  The trees are loaded with fruits. Bees are busy in collecting the honey. Thick vines grows over the sides of the farmhouses.  It’s a lovely ode which enjoys the autumn with his rich life.   But behind the life there is a sense of decay and end of the happiness. The season is not permanent.  It exists until the entry of the winter. The end of the growing season would come soon as the winter enters.  During the winter the fruits would rot and crops will be harvested.  But all these don’t darkens the beauty of autumn.  Rise and fall are part of the autumn just as the life and death of human cycle.

 

All the description of the autumn such as “bend” “swell”, “to the core”, “half reaped furrow”, “Their clammy cells” “hook”  all bring great images to enjoy.  But “cutting”, “hook” are closely associated with farming and bring out the picture of death and end. Every beginning has its own ending.  The poet makes the images little softer by touching the images, the “winnowing wind” which loiters in “hair soft-lifted”, here he personifies autumn as in “sound asleep” on the “half-reap’d furrow”; and the scythe does not prefer to cut and it is ready to wait for the next swath.  The poet slowly presents the picture of death as a kind of pleasurable process. It is a peaceful rest for the busy life. Everything blooms and wilts.  The day touches the stubble-plains with rosy hue”, but the night takes into deep sleep. The poet’s images of life and death are very graceful and beautiful.

 

The sound of the animals give a perfect end to the beautiful autumn.  Death of autumn is near the speaker says the hum of gnats is mournful.  The beauty of the song of crickets and the robin “With treble soft”, come to end with the song of swallows. They sing against the dark sky which is going to cover the land with unpleasant weather. All these appear every year with its beauty with its end.

 

Setting

The autumn takes place in the countryside.  The poet describes the whole season with the touch of English countryside.  Apple trees, hazelnuts and willows along the riverbank, these could be seen and enjoyed in countryside life.  The poet gives another hint of agricultural background with “Roofs of farmhouse” and the “cottage trees.”  Even stanza 2 is full of about harvesting.

 

 

Literary devices

 

The season of autumn is described with all its meaning. The autumn is personified to life and death.

It is a three stanza poem with different rhyme scheme.  Each stanza consists eleven lines. In each stanza, the first part is with four lines and second part is with seven lines. First part follows ABAB rhyme and the second part of the stanza is quite longer and different with rhyming patterns. This popular ode celebrates the beauty of the autumn season.  The poem further analysis the fall of the season due to the arrival of another which are part of nature.

Each stanza deals with the passing of time and the different phases of the season. Unfolding of the season which gives life to the nature and the folding which ends the season are the major two different stages of the season.

 

Rhetorical question is used to make a point clear and it is not to receive answers. In this poem John Keats asks a rhetorical question in the second and third stanzas such as “where are the songs of spring?”

 

Various images are used to make the readers visualize and to enjoy the feelings of the poet.  The images bring the various sense of sight, hearing, smell, and taste.  He uses “thatched-eyed”, “mossed cottage-trees”, “the granary floor”, “plump the hazel shells” and “full grown lamps.” These images are for eyes and “fumes of poppies” and “Sweet kernel” for nose. They make the readers to live through the poet’s imagination.

 

Personification is used to give human feature to non-human things.   The poet starts the poem with a personification.  “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;” he compares the autumn and the sun as close friends.  Their friendship is so intimate and close to support the growth of the fruits and leaves.

 

Symbolism is used to give deep meaning that has symbolic value different from the normal view.  John Keats symbolizes “autumn” as a woman and the “sun” for male. The gathering swallows stand to show the end of the season.

 

Simile is used to compare the object to another object or person to make the meaning clear.  In the ninth line “And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep.”  He compares autumn to a person who collects the remaining food from the floor.

 

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line.  For example “o” sound in “among the river sallows, borne aloft.”

 

Consonances are used where there is a repetition of consonant sounds in the same line.  For example the sound of “t” in “And touch the stubble-plains with the rosy hue” and “s” sound in “spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.”

 

Thus John Keats express the beauty of the autumn with these literary devices to bring out his feelings and emotions to the readers.

 

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