Title

To Autumn (1819)

John Keats

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-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5

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, 10

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; 15

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 twinèd flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20

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 barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25

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; 30

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

627. To Autumn. John Keats. The Oxford Book of English Verse

bartlebycom@aol.com (1999)

http://www.bartleby.com/sv/terms.html (13-12-06)

London (1794)

William Blake

I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

[minstrels] London--William Blake

Jim Clark. London (1999)

http://www.cs.rice.edu/ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1431.html (13-12-06)

POETIC COMMENTARY

“The two poems that I’m going to compare are ‘London’ by William Blake and ‘To Autumn’ by John Keats. The first one was written in 1794 and it belongs to ‘Songs of Experience’. The second one was written in 1819. This is one of the differences between them, the context, because they were published with 25 years of separation.” (Index of/fores/poesia 1 and 2)

In “London” as its title anticipates, Blake makes a Teutonic description of the people and the streets of the city. He shows us unhappy and unlucky people that live in the city. It’s a poem based on the poet’s experience in this city.

“To Autumn” describes this season which is the transition between summer and winter. It’s an outstanding season for the bad weather (the sun doesn’t shine like in summer and it’s cloudy), there's a strong wind and its sound is the only one heard, etc.

The common point that there is between them is the melancholy. The autumn is a sombre season of temperate and sad days which seem not to run out ever. The “mist” is a visible characteristic of the autumn which contributes to represent the sadness. London causes the same feeling of sadness and darkness. Another thing is that, in autumn, the fruit ripen, they lose the freshness. It is the same in London that is an age city. Both share a landscape of dull tones like the ochre and grey. In “London” it is reflected on the people’s face, in the streets, in the buildings…And, in “To Autumn” it is reflected overcoat in the nature, in the climate and in the estate of mind of the people.

There are more similarities and differences between them:

Similarities:

Both are descriptions of feelings and of the retrospective that Blake and Keats have about “London” and the autumn independently.

One of the common things in the two poems is the music. Both “London” and “To Autumn” have they’re own music. The difference is that the music of “London” is created by the crying of the people and in “To Autumn” is the music of the melancholy because the feeling of enjoyment that summer contributed with its sunny days and its bright colours has disappeared. It predominate a sensation of neglect and misfortune.

Furthermore, there are in the two poems words that belong to the Old English:

“London”: “hapless”

“To Autumn”: “Dost”

Both use the capital letters at the beginning of the words that implies people or things:

“London”: “Man”, “Soldiers”, “Infants”, “Church”, “Palace”, “Chimney”.

“To Autumn”: “Spring”, “Summer”.

The two poems rely on the repetitions:

“London”: “cry” (every people seems to be sad and the sound of crying is latent), “streets”, “marks”…

“To Autumn”: “fruit”, “wind”, “flowers”…

Finally, both have the same rhyme: ABAB

Differences:

It’s obvious that they are different poems with different themes. To start with, the autumn is a symbol of change (the summer ends and takes place the autumn) and in “London”, on the contrary, it seems that there aren’t changes, the city always has had and have the same “mark of woe”.

Their structures aren’t similar too: “London” is composed by 5 stanzas of 4 lines each one and “To Autumn” is composed by 3 stanzas of 11 lines each one.

Furthermore, in “To Autumn” the poet speaks to the autumn as if it would be a person. Keats addresses the autumn of “Thy” or more formal “Thou”. In “London” the poet talks about it but not with it. There are some rhetoric questions like in line 12 in which the poet questioned the autumn without expecting a reply of his affirmations. On one hand, in “London”, the poet talks in the first person of the singular and, in “To Autumn”, Keats doesn’t mention himself; he just talks referring to the autumn. This last one involves the nature’s theme with words like “fruitfulness”, “sun”, “vines”, “apples”, “trees”, “hazel”, “poppies”, “lambs” “bees”, etc, and “London” involves an urban environment: “street”, “Man”, “Infants”, “Church”, “Chimney”, etc.

In conclusion, they are different poems about different themes but they have a big common point, the sadness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1- Index of/fores/poesia ‘William Blake’

http://www.uv.es/~fores/poesia/01blake.html (13-12-06)

2- Index of/fores/poesia ‘John Keats’

http://www.uv.es/~fores/poesia/06keats.html (13-12-06)

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