To Autumn

Hello, Joanne.

Joanne is in Brighton, and she said, "Would you play a poem?" Of course I will, Joanne.

She said, "I love John Keats' To Autumn, and I'd like to dedicate it to my best friend Zoe.

We both moved to Brighton from London a few years ago." Yep, I can see the attraction in that, Joanne.

Uh, she's a great friend.

We love Brighton, and, uh, we also love John Keats.

So if you could play that poem, I would be very grateful.

Thank you, Nick." Joanne, think no more of it.

[classical music] 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 fat cheeks 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.

Well, that was Pip Torrens reading, as I'm sure we will recognize, the first stanza of John Keats' To Autumn, not Ode to Autumn as it's often called.

Pip is the star of many literary productions over many years, but also of a very prominent upcoming streaming series called War with Dominic West and Sienna Miller and others.

So he's gonna helpfully read, uh, stanza two and three as we go through.

[chuckles] I also love autumn, I must say, and that sense of sort of beauty, of warmth, but also of melancholy is very prevalent, isn't it?

It is.

It's a lovely thought that after a Sunday walk you can sort of wander back in and compose a poem like To Autumn.

[laughs] Yes, quite.

This recording is in the public domain.

To Autumn by John Keats.

Read for LibriVox.org.

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 Signora Neroni, the Countess de Corsi and Mrs. Proudy meet each other at Ullathorne.

And we'll finish today with a poem called To Autumn by Keats.

Let me just find it again.

OK.

I'm not talking about Lionel Richie, Michael Atherton when batting with Penn, or even the mid-90s shouting composers Chumbawamba, with their iconic hit, Tub Thumping, which has the beautifully conceived lyrics, I get knocked down, but I get up again.

No, I am talking about John Keats, who of course wrote To Autumn.

He literally wrote to autumn everybody.

Which reminds me, Mrs Watts, Mrs Bartholomew and Mr Archibald, I have checked and yes, you are more than welcome to write a strongly worded letter to the ECB over the call-up of Dan Lawrence to the England One Day squad not to play in the final One Day International.

If you send it to the home of cricket, I have been assured it will find its way your letter to D Lawrence.

So, Mr Keats, I am now going to read a verse of his poem, To Autumn.

He did actually write to autumn.

And I will then tell you my interpretation of his beautiful words.

In European literature, autumn leaves became a common symbol of mortality and ageing during the Romantic period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

John Keats wrote his famous Ode to Autumn in 1819 after a walk through the fields near Winchester, England.

The poem celebrates the season's quiet abundance without once mentioning death, even though its imagery suggests the fading year.

The word autumn comes from the Latin autumnus, whose origin is uncertain.

I'll only read the first verse.

To Autumn by John Keats.

Seasons 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.

And last but certainly not least, the great Seamus Heaney.

So a lot of people will know this poem, Postscript.

Yeah, I just thought I'd read this because, you know, we're coming into autumn, but we still want to get a bit of energy into our lives.

We still want to go places.

For when tired out with fun, he rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

the poetry of earth is ceasing never on a lone winter evening when the frost has wrought a silence from the stove there shrills the cricket's song in warmth increasing ever and seems to one in drowsiness half lost the grasshopper's among some grassy hills on the grasshopper and cricket by john keats 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 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 the 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 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

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, born 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.

End of To Autumn by John Keats Recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio Fill for me a brimming bowl Fill for me a brimming bowl, and let me in it drown my soul.

but put therein some drug designed to banish woman from my mind for i want not the stream inspiring that heats the sense with lewd desiring but i want as deep a draught as e'er from lethe's waves was quaffed from my despairing breast to charm the image of the fairest form that e'er my revelling eyes beheld that e'er my wandering fancy his vein away i cannot chase the melting softness of that face the beaminess of those bright eyes that breast earth's only paradise my sight will never more be blest for all i see has lost its zest nor with delight can i explore the classic page the muse's lore had she but known how beat my heart and with one smile relieved its smart i should have felt the sweet relief i should have felt the joy of grief yet as a tuscan mid the snow of lapland thinks on sweet arno even so forever shall she be the halo of my memory How many bards gild the lapses of time? how many bards gild the lapses of time a few of them have ever been the food of my delighted fancy i could brood over their beauties earthly or sublime and often when i sit me down to rhyme these will in throngs before my mind intrude but no confusion no disturbance rude do they occasion tis a pleasing chime So the unnumbered sounds that evening store, the songs of birds, the whispering of the leaves, the voice of waters, the great bell that heaves with solemn sound, and thousand others more that distance of recognizance bereaves, makes pleasing music and not wild uproar.

End of How Many Bards Gild the Lapses of Time by John Keats Recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio Section 25 of John Keats Selected Poems This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.