"To Autumn" is an ode by the English Romantic poet John Keats written in 1819. It is the last of his six odes (which include "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn"), which are some of the most studied and celebrated poems in the English language. The poem praises autumn, describing its abundance, harvest, and transition into winter, and uses intense, sensuous imagery to elevate the fleeting beauty of the moment. "To Autumn" is the last major work that Keats completed before his death in Rome, in 1821, where the 25-year-old succumbed to tuberculosis.
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The Full Text of “To Autumn”
1Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
2 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
3Conspiring with him how to load and bless
4 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
5To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
6 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
7 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
8 With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
9And still more, later flowers for the bees,
10Until they think warm days will never cease,
11 For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
12Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
13 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
14Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
15 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
16Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
17 Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
18 Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
19And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
20 Steady thy laden head across a brook;
21 Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
22 Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
23Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
24 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
25While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
26 And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
27Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
28 Among the river sallows, borne aloft
29 Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
30And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
31 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
32 The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
33 And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
The Full Text of “To Autumn”
1Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
2 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
3Conspiring with him how to load and bless
4 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
5To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
6 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
7 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
8 With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
9And still more, later flowers for the bees,
10Until they think warm days will never cease,
11 For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
12Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
13 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
14Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
15 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
16Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
17 Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
18 Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
19And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
20 Steady thy laden head across a brook;
21 Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
22 Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
23Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
24 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
25While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
26 And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
27Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
28 Among the river sallows, borne aloft
29 Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
30And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
31 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
32 The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
33 And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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“To Autumn” Summary
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“To Autumn” Themes
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Beauty and Death
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Embracing the Present
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “To Autumn”
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Lines 1-2
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; -
Lines 3-4
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; -
Lines 5-8
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; -
Lines 8-11
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. -
Line 12
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
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Lines 13-15
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; -
Lines 16-18
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: -
Lines 18-22
:
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. -
Lines 23-24
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— -
Lines 25-26
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; -
Lines 27-29
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; -
Lines 30-32
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; -
Line 33
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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“To Autumn” Symbols
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The Sun
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“To Autumn” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Apostrophe
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Assonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Enjambment
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Caesura
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Personification
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Pathetic Fallacy
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Simile
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Rhetorical Question
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Parallelism
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Diacope
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Imagery
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“To Autumn” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Mellow
- Fruitfulness
- Bosom-friend
- Maturing
- Conspiring
- Thatch-eaves
- Cottage-trees
- Gourd
- hazel shells
- Kernel
- O'er-brimm'd
- Clammy cells
- Store
- Abroad
- Granary
- Winnowing
- Half-reap'd
- Furrow
- Fume
- Hook
- Swath
- Twined
- Gleaner
- Laden head
- Cyder-press
- Oozings
- Ay
- Barred
- Bloom
- Stubble-plains
- Wailful
- Gnats
- Sallows
- Bleat
- Bourn
- Treble
- Red-breast
- Garden-croft
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- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “To Autumn”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“To Autumn” Speaker
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“To Autumn” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “To Autumn”
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More “To Autumn” Resources
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External Resources
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Actor Ben Whishaw Reads "To Autumn" — Ben Whishaw, who played John Keats in the 2009 biopic "Bright Star," reads the poem.
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The Original "To Autumn" Manuscript — Photos of the poem’s original manuscript, which is archived in the British Museum.
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Negative Capability — In this 1817 letter to his brothers George and Thomas, Keats introduces, somewhat offhandedly, his now famous concept of “negative capability.”
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A Letter From Keats — Keats’s letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds a few days after he wrote "To Autumn," in which Keats says the warm appearance of the fields in Winchester inspired him to do some writing.
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John Keats Biography — A detailed biography focusing on the important stages of Keats’s career and the development of his poet ideas.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by John Keats
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