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→Structure
Between the manuscript version and the published version of "To Autumn" Keats tightened the language of the poem. One of Keats's changes emphasized by critics is the change in line 17 of "Drows'd with red poppies" to "Drows'd with the fume of poppies", which emphasizes the sense of smell instead of sight. The later edition relies more on passive, past participles, as apparent in the change of "While a gold cloud" in line 25 to "While barred clouds".<ref>Bate 1962 p. 183</ref> Other changes involve the strengthening of phrases, especially within the transformation of the phrase in line 13 "whoever seeks for thee may find" into "whoever seeks abroad may find". Many of the lines within the second stanza were completely rewritten, especially those which did not fit into a rhyme scheme. Some of the minor changes involved adding punctuation missing from the original manuscript copy and altering capitalization changes between the versions.<ref>Ridley 1933 pp. 285–287</ref>
Between the manuscript version and the published version of "To Autumn" Keats tightened the language of the poem. One of Keats's changes emphasized by critics is the change in line 17 of "Drows'd with red poppies" to "Drows'd with the fume of poppies", which emphasizes the sense of smell instead of sight. The later edition relies more on passive, past participles, as apparent in the change of "While a gold cloud" in line 25 to "While barred clouds".<ref>Bate 1962 p. 183</ref> Other changes involve the strengthening of phrases, especially within the transformation of the phrase in line 13 "whoever seeks for thee may find" into "whoever seeks abroad may find". Many of the lines within the second stanza were completely rewritten, especially those which did not fit into a rhyme scheme. Some of the minor changes involved adding punctuation missing from the original manuscript copy and altering capitalization changes between the versions.<ref>Ridley 1933 pp. 285–287</ref>
==Poem==
The first stanza of the poem describes natural processes, unlike the following which deal more with sensual observations, as it presents a harvest in its final stages. <ref name="Bloom p.432"> Bloom 1971 p. 432</ref> The Stanza provides a union of maturation and growth, two oppositional forces within the work, and this union instills an idea within nature that the season will not end:<ref name="Bate p. 582">Bate 1963 p. 582</ref>
: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 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. (lines 1-11)
The second stanza reverses the images of the first stanza and describes the process of harvesting. Autumn, a harvester, is not actually harvesting but exists in a stasis. Only near the end of the stanza is there movement:<ref name="Bate p. 582"/>
: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 cider-press, with patient look,
:Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. (lines 12-22)
Within the final moments of the poem, there is an introduction of the harvest and Autumn is manifested in the role of a harvester. The end approaches within the final moments of the song and death is slowly approaching alongside of the end of the year. However, Autumn is replaced by an image of life in general, and the songs of autumn becomes a song about life in general:<ref>Bate 1963 pp. 582–583</ref>
: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. (lines 23-33)
==Notes==
==Notes==