Delhi Public School

B.S.City
Class-VIII English E-Content
Date: 07-04-2020

ODE TO AUTUMN
- John Keats
Read it aloud-
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 moss'd cottage-trees, 5
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; 10
For summer has o'erbrimm'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; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed 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; 20
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 25
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; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
(Read it aloud twice and then try and understand)
 About the author

John Keats (1795-1821) was one of the chief romantic

poets and authored famous poems such as
Endymion, Bright star etc. He was counted as a
major poet after Wordsworth. He belonged to
the second generation of romantic poets like
Lord Byron and P.B.shelley. He wrote for a very
short duration and became very famous. Some of his majorly
known poems are Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Urn,
Ode to autumn etc. The themes of keats’ works were love,
beauty, joy, nature, music and the mortality of human life.

● Popularity- Popularity: Written by John Keats, a popular

romantic poet, ‘To Autumn’ is a phenomenal ode that
celebrates the beauty and grandeur of the autumn season.
It was first published in 1819. The poem explores the
phenomenon of the fall season appreciatively. Its
popularity lies in the representation of many things related
to life and nature.
THINK- EVER THOUGHT WHY SEASONS CHANGE? WHICH
IS YOUR FAVOURITE SEASON?

EXPLANATION OF THE POEM

First stanza
Throughout the poem, the speaker
addresses autumn as if it were a person. In
the first stanza, he notes that autumn and
the sun are like best friends plotting how to
make fruit grow and how to ripen crops
before the harvest. The ripening process
discussed will make the seeds heavy and
fall off. The seeds will fall and the spring
flowers will grow. This chain will continue
and the whole process starting over again.
They think summer can last forever as they
buzz around the flowers. But it is the poet
who knows better.

Second Stanza
The second stanza describes the period
after the harvest, when autumn just
hangs out around the granary where
harvested grains are kept. Most of the
hard work has already been done, and
autumn can just take a nap in the
fields, walk across brooks, or watch
cider being made.
Third stanza
In the third stanza, the speaker notes
that the music of spring is a distant
memory, but that autumn’s music is
pretty cool too. This music includes
images of clouds and harvested fields
at sunset, gnats flying around a river,
lambs bleating, crickets singing and
birds whistling and twittering. All of the
sights and sounds produce a veritable
symphony of beauty.

Connotation:-
• The speaker briefly describes the season and
immediately jumps into personifying it suggesting
that autumn and the sun are old pals.
• Mists often accompany chilly weather because the
moisture in the air condenses into droplets when
it’s cold.
• Autumn is a close friend of the sun, who is
maturing as the year goes on.
• A bosom friend is like that friend you told all your
secrets to in junior high.
• They are planning to make the fruits grow.
• The apples bend down the branches of mossy trees
with their weight. The trees do not belong to some
big farming sector but to simple farmers.
• Gourds include things like squash, pumpkins etc.
• The fallen seeds will later turn into new plants and
flowers when spring comes again.
• The bees are like prisoners inside of clammy cells,
they take the flower’s nectar.
• The word store suggests the abundance of crops.
• Winnowing is to separate the grain from the chaff.
• The day is dying at sunset but it’s not a tragic or
violent death. It’s soft and gentle.
• The sound of the gnats contributes to the song of
autumn.
• Crickets are singing by rubbing their wings
together otherwise known as chirping.
• (Continued)

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