To autumn was one of the various poems that Keats wrote. And it is one of his most sensory poems in my opinion. The tone of the poem is an acceptance of process and sets the human experience of time within the larger cycles of nature. The first stanza is very sensory as the trees are full of mature fruits and the behives overflow with honey.The end of summer and beginning of autumn is literally the completion of natural and manual labor. The O-sounds both long and short such as in mellow, bosom, load, more, help build the impression of both combined pleasure and effort. The verbs in the first standza so swell, plump, fill, bend are all monosyllabic. The staza’s sensuality derives not only from the visions of fruits and flowers but also from the compressed verbs.
Early autumn is actually summers climax which is interesting since in line two the sun is maturing yet there is still movement in the poem.
The second stanza shifts to see autumn as a harvester at rest. Time still passes as the fileds are only half reaped but it is slowed. The sounds of the second stanza are softer with more f’s and w’s . This creates as sense of drowsy and gentle imagery even with the compression of time. Autumn is literally under ists own spell as it is “drows’d with the fumes of pooppies’
The poem’s last stanza breaks the spell momentarily for the readers as itinquires about spring. But the audience is imediatley calmed since spring’s music is still present. Ther isn’t a singular loss its just the vision of nature’s transformation. The poem has a sense of acceptance . the final vision of the soft dying day is still alive with the sounds of the lambs and