Keat's *Ode to Autumn* was the first thing I thought of when I looked out of the window this morning. Actually I said *Mist!* when I looked out, but then *mist!* in German really means *manure* so it's a somewhat more polite way of saying *sh*t!* Had a bad sleep, with silly dreams, and a blanket which kept falling off the bed instead of keeping me warm, and then woke up in time to see a quick flash of red where the sun was rising before it disappeared into the mist. I think the sun has now gone back to bed, as it is nowhere to be seen, perhaps I should do the same....But I decided to stay up, drink lots of hot coffee to warm me and dissolve the mists of despair which are enveloping me today, and then to see what the day brings. After such a dismal beginning, it can only get better....I hope!!
And here is Keat's beautiful poem for those who like to remember what they learnt (or didn't!) at school:
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.
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.
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.
