MISSING: Season of Mists

Here there have been downpours of rain and grey skys, cold dampness and clouds and, for a few days, I thought Autumn had abandoned me. Where was the sharp, clear brightness an Autumn morning brings? Where was that deliciously crisp freshness which I drink in like a tonic for my soul?

Today, it arrived. The Autumn morning sun hung low and heavy in the sky, glancing off the queuing cars, creating a hundred more tiny suns on windscreens to blind passers by.

Instead of catching the bus I walked in to work from the train station and felt my heart to be lighter than it has been for days as I stepped through the streets of London, the chill of the morning air bringing a glow to my cheeks as well as my heart.

A couple of days ago I decided that each Thursday I shall put a piece of poetry up on this blog (however, I make no promises as to how long this self - induced discipline will last!). This decision is partly to encourage me to read and seek out more poetry, partly because most of the best poetry I know of has been introduced to me by other people and the thought that I could introduce someone out there to a new and beloved poem is quite exciting, and partly because it is often so much easier to express a view in someone elses words than your own (though if my courage holds out one or two of my own attempts shall appear before you).

Here is a perfect example which I hope you enjoy - a favourite poem describing my favourite season:

Ode To Autumn
by John Keats

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 mossed 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'erbrimmed 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-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd 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.