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SCMP Reporter

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 mossed cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.

The main themes of the poem

The poem is in the form of an ode, an ancient form of poetry that was usually used when a poet wanted to celebrate something or someone. Here the ode is celebrating the season of autumn. As we read the poem, we can see how Keats uses poetic techniques and language in order to create a vision of that season. Another theme of the poem is the passing of time. This was   important for Keats. He was very aware that pleasure is short-lived. Time passes and so pleasure must fade eventually. What is more, the greater our awareness that pleasure is short-lived, the more we will value it when we have it.

The sound of the poem

It is very important to read   this poem aloud fluently. One of the ways in which  Keats creates his vision of autumn is through the sound of words. This in turn creates the atmosphere and mood that he wants. Read aloud the first line again: 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.' This has a soft, gentle feel that is also wistful and melancholy. How does he create this mood through   sound? He uses these techniques:

Consonance:   the patterns of sound created by the consonants he uses. There are no harsh consonants used, but instead the dominant sounds are the softer 'm', 's' and 'l'.

Alliteration: this is where the poet repeats the initial letter of words as in 'mists' and 'mellow'. This serves to stress soft consonants. It is as though we are surrounded by the softness of the mist.

Assonance: this is the pattern created by the vowels. Vowels can be short and harsh.   Here all the vowel combinations are long and open. We can say that the assonance helps to create the feeling of softness that we associate with a misty, autumn day.

Rhyme:   throughout the poem, there is   rhyme at the end of lines, such as 'fruitfulness/bless'. This stresses the types of consonance and assonance that we have been talking about.

Fertile nature

For Keats, one of the beauties of autumn is that it is proof of the fertility of nature. This is when all the efforts of nature and man's efforts as a farmer come to fruition. Keats shows his admiration of this fertility by stressing the   productive aspect of nature. Every aspect described in this poem is of nature that has produced bumper crops. The trees are so full of apples that the branches bend under their weight. Keats emphasises this by putting the verb as the second word of the line.

We can also tell this from words   such as 'swell', 'plump', 'ripeness'. The last line of the first stanza (verse) shows us this fullness by filling the line with 'mm' consonance: 'For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.' It is as though our mouth is 'o'er-brimmed' with the sound of the letter 'm' even as we speak.

Beauty cannot last

We all know that autumn is followed by winter. The crops are gathered, the leaves drop and everything withers.    Autumn is a beautiful season, and the fact that we know it will inevitably turn into winter makes us appreciate it all the more. There is also   sadness because we know that it cannot last. This is the melancholy of the last line: 'And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.'

The birds gather   before flying off   to warmer climes   as winter approaches.   Enjoy the beauty while it's here.

To Autumn by John Keats (HKCEE)



The beauty of autumn