Ode to autumn line by line summary and analysis

 

The poem begins with vivid descriptions of autumn season. Autumn is a time when nature’s processes of growth come to fruitfulness. Everything reaches to a mature stage of growth, yet growth still continues. It is the season of mist and abundance of fruits. Here, the sun is the close companion of autumn season as it has a significant role in the process of ripening the fruits. Also grape vines are loaded with grapes, that even run above the thatch due to its richness. There are apple trees near the moss cottage weighed down with excessive amounts of apples.

 

 

the poet gives more examples of ripeness, bringing the images of vegetables as well. Growth and fullness is here applied to gourds and hazelnuts. Gourds can produce more sweet kernals and finally flowers continue to bloom. Which provides  seemingly endless supply for the bees to gather nectar. They think that these warm (happy) days shall never end. From summer season onwards they start collecting nectar. Now the cells are brimming with honey.

 

 

The second stanza presents  snapshots of the different occupations of autumn season. Autumn has been personified and compared to a woman farmer sitting carefree on the granary floor; there blows a gentle breeze and the hairs of the farmer waves. Autumn becomes a reaper. It feels drowsy and sleepy on the half reaped corn due to the inducing smell of poppy flowers. So, the half reaped field remains inactive. Thus it spared the next row of the corn and the flowers as well. Again autumn season is personified as a gleaner, who collects grain from the field and carries the burden of the grains on its head. The worker balances his movement while crossing a stream with a bundle on his head. Finally, autumn may be seen as a woman who crushes the ripened apples to obtain the juice for making cider. She sits by the cider press and watches patiently the apple juice flowing out drop by drop. 

 

In the last stanza poet describes the different sounds of autumn. The spring season is distinguished by its sweet songs. That sweet melody is no longer available in autumn season. But, there is no need to feel the regret, speaker says. Autumn has its own peculiar music. The music of autumn normally heard in the evening. When the sun sets, the soft golden hue permeates in the fields. Especially, to the place in which the crops have been reaped. At this time, the melancholy buzzing of the gnats/insects is heard. The high pitched sounds of the insects carried right from the river side. In addition to the melancholic songs of the gnats, the bleating of the lambs is heard from the hillside landscape. Then there is the chirping sound of the cricket/ grasshopper. Then comes the delicate twittering sounds of the Swallows (migrating birds). They gather together in order to migrate. 

So, all these sounds constitute the songs of autumn season. The mourning of gnats by the riverside, the bleating of the lamps by the hillside, the songs of the cricket from the hedge, the Redbreast whistles from the garden and the swallows twitter in the sky. Such is the glorious songs of autumn season.