Autumn Poetry

On a misty morning like this morning this poem always springs to mind.

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-eves run;

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-brimm'd 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,

Drows'd 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 cyder-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 red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats 1820

I wish I had taken my camera with me as I walked to work so that I might have captured the mist-laden cobwebs glistening in the sunlight like bejewelled lace.

Another favourite Autumn poem is this children's poem, because early on at infant school Fay had to memorise and recite this poem. She did it word perfect.

Misty

Mist in the morning,

Raw and nippy,

Leaves on pavement,

Wet and slippy.

Sun on fire

Behind the trees,

Muddy boots,

Muddy Knees.

Shop windows,

Lighted early,

Soaking grass,

Dewy, pearly.

Red, lemon,

Orange and brown,

Silently, softly,

The leaves float down.

Shirley Hughes