l. [62]. burden. Cf. Isabella, l. [503].
NOTES ON 'TO AUTUMN'.
In a letter written to Reynolds from Winchester, in September, 1819, Keats says: 'How beautiful the season is now—How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather—Dian skies—I never liked stubble-fields so much as now—Aye better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a stubble-field looks warm—in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it.' What he composed was the Ode To Autumn.
[Page 137]. ll. [1 seq.] The extraordinary concentration and richness of this description reminds us of Keats's advice to Shelley—'Load every rift of your subject with ore.' The whole poem seems to be painted in tints of red, brown, and gold.
[Page 138]. ll. [12 seq.] From the picture of an autumn day we proceed to the characteristic sights and occupations of autumn, personified in the spirit of the season.
l. [18]. swath, the width of the sweep of the scythe.
ll. [23 seq.] Now the sounds of autumn are added to complete the impression.
ll. [25-6]. Compare letter quoted above.
[Page 139]. l. [28]. sallows, trees or low shrubs of the willowy kind.
ll. [28-9]. borne . . . dies. Notice how the cadence of the line fits the sense. It seems to rise and fall and rise and fall again.