Can Autumn surge? We don't think of this season as arriving in flows, waves or billows. We don't think of Autumn as arising either. A poetry website summarizes how Autumn has been portrayed in poems:
"Autumn is the time of ripening. All hopes of spring and all actions of summer are finished with autumn. Nature in its adult state inspires for solitude and thinking. Carpet of orange, yellow and brown leafs is the best field for long walks. After gathering all harvest autumn offers time to think about all that had happened in two past seasons. Poetry about autumn is mostly sad and nostalgic. Those poems are filled with memories of past. Creators of those pieces recall their past times and share them to all readers. And in many ways this type of read is pleasant."
What are the great Autumn poems? Well, there is one that shines above all overs. It is John Keats' poem "To Autumn."
This poem is universally considered one of the most perfect short poems in the English language. The work marks the end of his very short poetic career, and life. A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome of tuberculosis.
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.
The full poem is here. Our picture today denies that Autumn has arrived. These are pictures of Victoria's Butchart Garden gelato cafe, and then the enclosed restaurant garden. These are the Autumn gardens that lull us into thinking "warm days will never cease".
