To Autumn

O, 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 jars.

Who hath not seen thee? If then, why are not thou Worn smooth, tendrils of grapes like some of tangle’s foam? You bend low over the flower’d graves, That do not know coffin nor tomb-stone at all You, and your glory are many times kissed For you are the end of all, the last and long, And if they know us not, they shall love thee more.

There are no dead who pass beneath thy gaze, But only empty flowers and laden trees
Giving way to the vortex of swarming air Which will take you into spaces unknown.

Until we meet again amid the summer’s gold When our crowns shall meet in secret and unfold.

• John Keats