Ode To Autumn by John Keats. || Text | Summary | Notes

 ODE TO AUTUMN
             ......John Keats.....

"To Autumn" is a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821). The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.

The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the late maturation of the crops to the harvest and to the last days of autumn when winter is nearing. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and the description of its bounty, its sights and sounds. It has parallels in the work of English landscape artists, with Keats himself describing the fields of stubble that he saw on his walk as being like that in a painting.

The work has been interpreted as a meditation on death; as an allegory of artistic creation; as Keats's response to the Peterloo Massacre, which took place in the same year; and as an expression of nationalist sentiment. One of the most anthologised English lyric poems, "To Autumn" has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language.







TEXT:

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 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.

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.

WORD NOTES:

• To the core - fully / thoroughly
• To swell - increase in size.
• Later flowers - Flowers of Autumn.
• Warm days - Summer days.
• Winnowing wind - Wind that separates the corn from the chaff.
• Furrow- Land
• Swath - corn that to be mown.
• Gleaner - one who picks up the corn.
• Ladden head - Head loaded with reaped corn.
• The last oozing - The last drop.
• Barred clouds - Clouds which often gather at the time of sunset in the western sky.
• Bloom - Gloomy Red colour 
• Stubble plains - Remaining part after reaping the cornfield.
• Wailful - Sad.
• Borne alooft - Carried high.
• Bourn - Boundary.
• Red Breast Robin- A bird with red Breast seen in British garden.
• Twitter - chirping noise.
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IMPORTANT QUESTION:



1. What kind of poem Ode to Autumn is?

Horetion Ode.

2. Who is called the "close bosom friend of maturing sun" ?

The Autumn.

3. "Conspiring with him"- with whom was the speaker conspiring ?

The sun.

4. Conspiring with him"- who is conspiring?

The Autumn.

5. Autumn is called....

The season of mists.

6. With what does Autumn fill the fruits to the core?

Ripeness

7. With what does the Autumn plump the hazel shells?

Sweet kernel.

8. "Overbeamed their clammy cells" who is responsible to overbeamed?

Bees.

9. Sometimes who ever seeks abroad may find / thee sitting careless on the grammar floor".-  who is referred to as thee?

The Autumn.

10. "And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep"- who is compared to a gleaner?

The Autumn.

11. " Thou watchest the last oozing hours by hours"- which literary device used here?

Personification.

12. Ode To Autumn personified as...

Harvester , Reaper , Cider presser.

13. " Think not of them"- what is referred to here as them?

The music of the Spring.

14. "Thou hast thy own music too"- who is referred to here as thou?

The Autumn.

15. Who is singing in a wailful choir?

The small gnats.

16. From where the small gnats mourning?

Among the shallows of the river.

17. Full grown lambs were bleating from..

Hilly bourn.

18. Who is whistling from a garden croft?

Red Breast Robin.



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