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 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’er-brimmed 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 twinèd flowers; And sometime 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.