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,
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;
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.
From http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15565
Published in 1820
I don't have Microsoft Word so when I try to open the word document it says the file format is invalid, but I'm going to use different sources to find the characteristics of romantic poems.
The romantic period 1770-1870 happened while many different revolutions were occurring such as the American and French Revolutions. There was lots of social, economic, and political changes occurring at this time, and the Industrial Revolution brought new technology as well as some new ideas. The main characteristics of this period in literature were imagination, symbolism, nature, and individualism.
"To Autumn" obviously fulfills the requirement of containing nature. The title and virtually every line in the entire poem references an aspect of nature from seeds, to seasons, to animals. Overall it is describing the gradual change from summer to autumn. The meaning of the poem is quite simple; I believe is is simply an ode to autumn as the title says. It complains about the "clammy cells" of summer and describes autumn in a more positive light. There is not much symbolism that I can detect in the poem, but there is lots of imagination. Keats describes very specific occurrences of nature very specifically and has quite the imagination to do so. For example, "Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn/ Among the river sallows, borne aloft/Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies" (27-29). There are no specific references to individualism, but you can assume the point of view is that of 1 person. He enjoys the change from summer to autumn, and describes it as he sees it without any interruption from other people. I can picture the speaker sitting in the park by himself watching these natural things occur. He appreciates the fruit, songs, and flowers that autumn gives him.
Here is a beautiful picture of autumn from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn
Sources:
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/rom.html
http://www.odessa.edu/dept/english/dsmith/rom.lit.char.pdf
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