September Poetry -- 6 of --n

J$

From: js@cs.vu.nl (J$)
Newsgroups: nl.eeuwig.september
Subject: September Poetry -- 6 of --n
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 23:24:27 +0200
Organization: Diff'rent colours, made of tears
Message-ID: <js-3009962324280001@js.home.phil.ruu.nl>

         Ode  to Autumn
        -- John Keats --


    Season of mist 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 thath-eaves run;
    To bend with apples the moss¹d 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 o¹er-brimme¹d 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-reap¹d furrow sound asleep,
      Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
        Spares the next swath and all its twinéd 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 watches the last oozing, hours by hours.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
      Think not of them, - thou hast thy music too,
    While barréd 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.