summer definitely ending...

for a couple days, the opening line of a Keats ode to autumn I had to study in college has been running through my head.... the line that keeps repeating is, "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." I love that. Of course, I hate the next line, "Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun..." I hate all that Romantic personification, blah blah blah.

I remember I loved that class when I took it, freshman year, with my friend Sylvia; I loved the feeling I was reading Great Literature, I loved the poetry, I loved reading out of a big heavy anthology edited by my professor. Today kids accuse the prof of just trying to sell books when s/he assigns hir own work... I was star-struck that my prof had written an actual book, he was actually the authority in the field... I have no idea whether that was true, or whether that's just my youthful naivete....

Here's the whole poem. It's about equal parts insufferable affectation:

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee* sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind...
[* "Thee" = Autumn, personified as a lovely woman, of course]

and gorgeous, succulent imagery:

While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

and

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

*sigh* how long has it even been since I've read a poem?