John Keats

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; ConspiringConspiringWorking together; literally, to conspire is “to breathe together” (OED)with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round thethatch-evesthatch-evesThatch-eaves, the edge of thatched roofsrun; 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 thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by thewinnowingwinnowingSeparating the wheat from the chaff, the heavy from the lightwind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thyhookhookScythe Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like agleanergleanerOne who gathers the remaining food after the reaper has harvested the fieldthou dost keep Steady thyladenladenLoaded downhead 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? Where are they? Rhetorical convention known asubi sunt, often appearing in poems that meditate on the transitory nature of life and the inevitability of death. Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred cloudsbloombloom“to colour with a soft warm tint or glow” (OED)the soft-dying day, And touch thestubble-plainsstubble-plainsFields made up of stubble, the remaining stumps of grain left after reapingwith rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the riversallowssallowsWillow trees, 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 agarden-croftgarden-croftA croft is a small enclosed field; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.