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larryhammerFor Poetry Monday, one I ought to post while it's still in season -- though I'm sure in Winchester, this description is past its time (it was written there on 19 September 1819).
To Autumn, John Keats
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.
Per Wikipedia, this "has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language." Well played, critics -- well played. (Those critics that regarded it as "untroubled," on the other hand, needed to have their eyes checked.)
---L.
Subject quote from "The Story of Rimini," Canto IV, Leigh Hunt.
To Autumn, John Keats
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.
Per Wikipedia, this "has been regarded by critics as one of the most perfect short poems in the English language." Well played, critics -- well played. (Those critics that regarded it as "untroubled," on the other hand, needed to have their eyes checked.)
---L.
Subject quote from "The Story of Rimini," Canto IV, Leigh Hunt.
no subject
Date: 27 November 2017 04:02 pm (UTC)I'm on John Clare today!
no subject
Date: 28 November 2017 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 12:32 pm (UTC)Which gets me thinking about who I WOULD include in an anthology!
You can probably guess at some.
no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 28 November 2017 06:04 pm (UTC)Can you unpack that for me? This is the type of poem that I read and go "okay, that was a nice description," but as your comment suggests there's more going on, it seems a good case study for figuring out what I'm missing.
no subject
Date: 28 November 2017 07:26 pm (UTC)One thing to notice is the progress of images through the stanzas: the first is active daytime doings, the second aims towards sleep, and the third pans out to wide-angled sunset views with several departures -- and the prior departure of Spring's songs looks forward to the departure of this season as well, pointing towards the dark of winter and, as an undertone to it all (especially the sleeping) death. It is not a coincidence that the gnats are mourning.
no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 08:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 November 2017 05:55 pm (UTC):nod: