To Autumn

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,  
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.

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 red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;      
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.