"Then in a wailful choir the smal gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, bourne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;"
I am ecstatic that this was one of the poems assigned to us because lately I've been thinking about how much I love Autumn and how unappreciated it is. It seems that in the poem, the season has just arrived as it has in the real world as well. By the end of summer, everything seems dried up and dusty, almost dead. But when fall comes around, things gain new life. The rain comes back around. The leaves, although in the process of dying, transform into an array of colors. Fruits and vegetables like apples and gourds become plump and ready to consume. Autumn fills these life-forms with "ripeness to the core." Even the air of Autumn lets one know that the world is alive through its "winnowing wind". Like Keats points out, spring is often the celebrated season of life. He asks "Where are the songs of spring?". However, this is followed by "Think not of them, thou has thy music too..". People don't appreciate the new life of fall because they are so focused on the coming winter that they fail to recognize it. The main purpose of Keats's poem is to emphasize the beauty and life of Autumn that is never really recognized. It is praise to the Autumn which is so frequently overlooked.
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