To Autumn by John Keats

In the poem “To Autumn,” the author John Keats uses a multitude of poetic elements such as rhythm, diction, sound, imagery and voice to develop a theme that both nature and our lives follow a similar and beautiful path while living, even as they come close to death. The poem itself is comprised of three stanzas of similar length. Each of these stanzas describes a different part of autumn, the beginning, middle and end. The speaker in the poem acknowledges that time passes by in the poem. Furthermore the speaker suggests that each subsequent point in time is somewhat better than the one before it. The poem praises the fall season by using many types of imagery to appeal to the reader. Each of the poem’s three stanzas represents a natural evolving to a new stage in life. The entire season in the poem is described with numerous images that suggest three important stages of life, growth, decay and death. These images refer to the process of ageing, which reinforces the seasons being born, slowly growing and then maturing and ripening. Some of the images of growing in the first couple parts of the poem were “load and bless”, “vines that round the thatch run,” “swell the gourd,” and “twined flowers.” These images were coupled with verbs and adjectives that further demonstrate the beauty of growing such as, “more and still more,” “over-brimmed,” “sitting careless,” “soft-lifted,” “winnowing wind,” and “budding.”
The imagery that is present in the later parts of the poem illustrates images of dying. Some of these images include “soft-dying day,” “small gnats mourn,” and “light wind lives or dies.” Other images in the poem suggest representations of death and the change that comes of them. The line “touch the stubble- plains” gives an image of a barren field that has already been harvested. The “full-grown lambs loud bleat” is an image that also touches on the sense of hearing, which suggests of the imminent slaughter of an animal. The “gathering swallows” which