So long, September
September 30, 2011 § 3 Comments
I will send September out in high style this Friday night, with a long bath and Country Living, re-warmed homemade chicken soup with rice, and an early bedtime.
But first, here is the John Keats poem I feel the need to re-read and remind everyone of this time of year. You may want to put on your literary thinking cap since it’s all old language and meter and rhyme, but it’s a gorgeous piece and worth the time. Can’t you just imagine England in the fall? I was there in the gloomy winter/spring, but I can imagine. And I’m remembering so many pastoral paintings, hanging on the walls of European museums, by artists whose names I wrote down on scraps of paper, and shoved in my pockets, and inevitably lost.
—–
To Autumn
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,
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,
Drows’d 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 red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Kinds of Honey 
Hello. Thank you for the poem! Enjoyed the read with a cup of tea in the quiet morning hours before work. Somehow I found your blog while exploring ways to begin my first WOOF experience. Just wanted to share a link to a very nice audio book I recently bought called Poets of Nature. Have you heard it?
http://www.amazon.com/Poets-Nature-Meditation-Human-Connection/dp/B002G4GJQC/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1320838394&sr=8-12
Hi Chris! Thanks for reading. And thanks for sharing that audio book – looks like some wonderful classic poets are on there. You’ll have to let me know what you think! When and where are you planning to WWOOF? If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
Hi. Thanks for responding. I want to travel to South America! Looking at Ecuador. However, someone made a statement that it is best to farm in developed countries because volunteers in underdeveloped countries take potential jobs away from locals who are already underpaid. Do you agree? Portugal, Spain, or France would be ideal in the Spring. I see you studied Sustainable Agriculture. That’s great! I studied Health Science, but am now looking for an alternative to the medical field. Can you tell me about Sustainable Agriculture studies and what type of work is available after graduation? Thanks!