ODE TO AUTUMN

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 170, 19 July 1924, Page 24

ODE TO AUTUMN

Season ot mists and mellow fruitfulness, '• Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun: Conspiring with him how to load nml bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run To bend with apples the moss'd cottagetrees ; ! And fill all fruit with ripeness to the ; ; core; i | To swell the gourd, and plump the '• hazel shells I With a sweet kernel; to set. budding more ; And still more, later flowers for the beea, ! 1 ' Until tbey think warm days will never ' cease; . j For Summer has o'erbrlmmed their clammy cells. ' Who hath not seen thoe oft amid thy store? i 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 swathe and all its twined flowers; ; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, i Thou watchest the last oozlngs, hours by hours. Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, i where are they? i Think not of them—thou hast thy music 1 too, ' While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy I hue; I Then In a wailful choir the small gnats I mourn I Among the river-sallows, borne aloft I Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And lull-grown lambs loud bleat from , hilly bourn; ', Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble i soft The red breast whistles from a garden-" i croft. And gathering swallows twitter in the I ekies. • ■ ■ 1 . -T-John Keats.