Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/781

 JOHN KEATS

634 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-eaves runj 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-brimnTd 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,

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 oozmgs hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spiing ? Ay, where are thcy ? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred cloudb 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;

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