John Keats







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                                                                                           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'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.






                                                                                           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.






                                                                                           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.