Summary of Ode to Autumn:

Ode to Autumn is one of the major Odes of Keats. It shows all the qualities of Keats as a poetic artist--- his pictorial power, his economy of expression, his classical restraint, his sense of proportion, and his grave and solemn music.

The Ode to the Autumn shows Keats in a rich mood of serenity. There are no questions and conflicts in the poem. Autumn is not regarded here as the prelude to winter, but it is a season of mellow fruitfulness--- a season of ripeness and fulfillment. Here there is only the enjoyment of beauty. The enjoyment is disturbed by no romantic longing, no regret for the spring that is gone. A momentary regret, however, crosses the poet's mind when he says:

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Immediately the question is stilled, and the momentary regret gives place to contentment:

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.

Ode to Autumn is a remarkable example of Keats's sensuousness. In the poem autumn is described in sensuous terms. There is nothing in the poem about autumn being the prelude to dreary winter; autumn to Keats is all ripe fruits and ripe grains. Autumn also has music that appeals to the ear. We smell something of the sort of sex when we read that autumn is conspiring with sun:

How to load and bless

With fruit and vines that round the that eves run

And fill and fruit with ripeness to the core.

The poem breathes out a genuine Hellenic spirit. Here Keats is a Greek in his manner of personifying the powers of nature. In perfect tune with the Greek manner, autumn is presented, in the poem, in human manifestations as a reaper, or a gleaner, or a harvester, or a cider-presser.

In the poem the poet chiefly relies on images and the poem gains in concreteness. The full grown lambs bleating loudly from the hilly boundary, the grasshopper singing and the robin whistling are images of life that stand out sharply against the melancholy austerity of late autumn.

Finally the musical cadence, the noble form, the economy of words, the felicity of expression, the balance, the harmony make the Ode a thing of beauty, a joy forever!