Poetry Saturday . . . To Autumn

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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.

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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 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.

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Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou has 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.
~John Keats

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Bonnie on Pinterest

John Keats was an English Romantic poet. He was one of the main figures of the second generation of romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his work only having been in publication for four years before his death.

Although his poems were not generally well received by critics during his life, his reputation grew after his death, so that by the end of the 19th century he had become one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of later poets and writers. Jorge Luis Borges stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant literary experience of his life.

The poetry of Keats is characterized by sensual imagery, most notably in the series of odes. Today his poems and letters are some of the most popular and most analyzed in English literature.

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One of my favourite films is "Bright Star" which focuses on the last three years of Keat's life and his relationship with a young woman named Fanny Brawne . . . the title of the film coming from a sonnet written by Keats of the same name.


(Miss Fanny Brawne)

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

If I am not mistaken this was one of his last works. He died very young . . . this talent, only age 25, and of tuberlosis, which took many of his family. When one looks at the amount of work he composed during his short life . . . you cannot fail to see how amazing a talent he was, and to wonder what might have been had he lived to a ripe old age . . . or do we romanticize his work ever more because he did not.

We'll never know.




Day four of the renovations . . . and we have a drain hole!! Somewhere for the water to flow out of. This builder works very hard. He never stops. We make him cups of tea, which he drinks while he is working. He has a very short lunch, usually going out and bringing something back and eating it in his van. Yesterday we were given floor samples to choose from, as that will most likely be the next thing to go in.



I rather like this one. We can choose a paint to have the two painted walls done in. (I chose white tiles.) I think a very pale grey would be nice, with white woodwork. What do you think???



As I was stripping some Marjoram leaves yesterday for something . . . I happened upon a very tiny and most unexpected visitor. He curled himself up into a ball almost immediately, I was quite unable to get a photo of him in all of his tiny glory. I thought it quite sweet and tender . . . and I placed him back in the tub amidst the Marjoram . . . my tender heart could do nothing else. I am sure he does not eat much.

And he was so sweet, so tiny . . . and so afraid.



There's breakfast cooking over in The English Kitchen today . . . Pain Perdu (French Toast) with Cream Cheese and Blueberry Syrups!

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. ~Henry van Dyke

Happy Day All!