To Autumn
by 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-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.
Dear diary,
I went outside to go for a walk today, as I needed to get away from all the work I’ve been getting lately. Autumn has arrived, along with its mists and fruit-laden vines which grow next to the houses in this village. Below the aging sun all the apples, blackberries and pears are growing and ripening. As I was walking, I passed a pumpkin patch where round gourds lay on the ground and I walked past flower patches full of late flowers in bloom. I sat on a bench and watched the bees, still full of summer, flying around me whilst looking for nectar to use once they got back to their hives. After a while I continued walking and found myself imagining the autumn as a goddess sitting on the floor of the granary that I had just passed. Or maybe not sitting, but working and collecting the wheat in the poppy-filled fields which surrounded me at the time. This is not the first time I have imagined this: previously I could almost see Autumn standing by a cider-press hour after hour, patiently trying to get all the juice out of the freshly picked apples. I continued my walk, but every thought I had somehow led me to the thought of spring. I tried not to think of those few months at the start of the year, because a long time will have passed before they arrive. Besides, why think of spring when autumn has just started in all its glory? I decided to head back home, because the night was starting to fall. The sun shone on the once full wheat fields with a rosy hue one last time before disappearing into the dark. Clouds started rolling over the hills and bugs rose from the riverbanks in gigantic swarms. The lambs, which have grown significantly since last spring, were bleating, the crickets were singing, the birds were silently whistling. And as I am falling asleep the swallows are twittering, gathering themselves for their winter migration.
by Anonymous
Poetry into Prose 