Sunday, September 2, 2007

SEASON OF MISTS AND MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

Writing about Gladys Taber yesterday reminded me of her love for the English poet John Keats. Might Daisy Lupin have agreed to a theme of "Poems We Love In Autumn" for a September Poetry Fest? Here is my favorite John Keats poem:

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 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.

6 comments:

Kelli said...

Wonderful poem! Happy September to you!

Kelli

Lila Rostenberg said...

I remember reading Gladys Tabor's columns sometimes.
Living in rural New England sounds idyllic! I suppose wherever your heart lives is a wonderful "home" to share and write about...as you have written about NOrth Dakota.
I just read about "north Dakota quilt blocks and the fact the the Pasqueflower is the state flower...now I have to look that up on Google!

Rowan said...

One of my favourite poems too and a lovely picture to go with it.

Miss Robyn said...

yes, yes, yes!! Daisy Lupin would have loved "Poems we love in Autumn" - fantastic idea!

smilnsigh said...

Oh you beat me with this. :-))) I too love this poem by Keats. As you can see, from this '06 entry of mine.

But I admit to forgetting that Gladys loved him so much. Silly me. :-) Didn't she *snitch* a leaf off something near his grave and keep it?

Mari-Nanci

Annie Jeffries said...

Keats got me to thinking about fall haikus. Thanks.