to autumn

Question 1

summary

Answer 1

• the poem is a description of the different stages of autumn as the season transitions into winter
• it considers how the beauty of nature changes over time

Question 2

tone

Answer 2

• melancholic as the author thinks about the passing of time
• reflective as he focuses on the changes in abundance, harvesting and decay of nature
• he is concious that change is inevitable

Question 3

context

Answer 3

• keats wrote this poem after taking a country walk
• he died at 25 from TB and he knew it would kill him

Question 4

quotes

Answer 4

• “close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”
• “sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies”
• “in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn”
• “while barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day”

Question 5

“close bosom-friend of the maturing sun”

Answer 5

• personification
• autumn is personified as a woman who is close friends with the sun which helps fruit ripen
• emphasises beuty of nature

Question 6

“sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies”

Answer 6

• verb
• verb drows’d creates a peacefull scene preparing the reader for the next stage which is death

Question 7

“in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn”

Answer 7

imagery is used to emphasise the melancholy tone

Question 8

“while barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day”

Answer 8

alliteration is used to emphasise the passing of time and the reality that death is round the corner

Question 9

structure

Answer 9

• 3 stanzas
• regular rhyme pattern that includes variation at the end to reflect that there is a cycle to life but change should be expected
• iambic pentameter

Question 10

poem

Answer 10

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 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,
Drowsed 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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Question 11

compare to

Answer 11

home thoughts from abroad