Ode to Autumn - John Keats

We have been enjoying the most glorious of autumns in Sydney this year. 

The warm, sunny days, stunning sunsets and balmy nights have everyone extolling the virtues of autumn.

A trip to Mudgee last weekend reminded me of my favourite autumnal phrase from John Keats 

"season of mists and mellow fruitfulness..." 

I was first introduced to this poem at a teaching conference many years ago.

It was autumn and the lecturers obvious passion for this poem shone through every word & phrase 

until I had goosebumps on my arms and the hairs on the back of my neck were shivering in pleasure.

I have never forgotten that day, or this poem or how it made me feel.

Ode 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-eaves run;

To bend with apples the mossed 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'erbrimmed 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-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed 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 cider-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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

This post is part of Alphabe-Thursday

and Flashback Friday.