Ode To Autumn Poem by John Keats

Ode To Autumn

Rating: 3.5


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.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Srimayee Ganguly 03 January 2013

Linda May Fox, Keats is my favorite too. I love his poems La Belle Dame... and On first looking into Chapman's Homer.

29 17 Reply
Arnav Gogoi 06 June 2013

i love this piece. It lucidly and wittily describes how beauty lies in every thing. The season which we generally consider to be wed to stillness and dryness, Keat's has portrayed it in a completely different way. I specially love the mood of the poem which starts from the first stanza being one of fruitfulness, fertility and life to the third being full of the unheeded music of nature. The personification of autumn is remarkable. There is movement even in stillness! ! ! That's a piece only a master can create....

25 19 Reply
Linda May Fox 22 June 2012

Keats is my favourite poet and I think his work is amazing! Ode to Autumn is one of his best, i feel. His description of autumn is great. Very awe inspiring!

25 12 Reply
Paul Butters 09 January 2007

Keats is at least one of my favourites. Get the prayer mat out! This is one of his best. NB the subtle distancing effect throughout the poem using ALL the senses! Sublime.

22 14 Reply
Edwin Leung 17 May 2015

This is one of the best from John Keats. I love.

15 17 Reply
Me Poet Yeps Poet 17 January 2020

A natures poet knows best I have posted two just now do read

2 1 Reply
fuyck a 23 September 2019

this book remands me of my inner hole

2 9 Reply
Florence Tipp 23 August 2019

Have always loved John Keats' poetry. Do have a book of his poetry that I read sometimes. He and Shelley were both great poets of the romantic period. The poetry of Keats is so visual and sensual that I feel when reading it that I am part of the experience. Few poets have that impact on me with exception of T.S. Elliott.

5 1 Reply
Bernard F. Asuncion 05 April 2019

One of the best poems by John Keats.......

3 4 Reply
Armaan 05 March 2019

Can people please stop trolling in poem comment sections please?

8 6 Reply
John Keats

John Keats

London, England
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