Impermanent of nature is well illustrated in ‘Ode to Autumn’
In
the following lines, I would like to analyze how the poet, John Keats portrays
the “impermanent of nature” in his poem “Ode to autumn”. Ode generally refers
to a lyric poem in
the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or
manner and written in varied or irregular meter and also it is a poem meant to
be sung”.
“Ode
to autumn” shows the maturity of the poetic career of John Keats. It is
believed that this is the last poem of his life. The poet died after one year
of writing this poem. So, the poet tries to embed the thought of “impermanent
of nature and life” in his last poem as he knew that he want to stop writing
after this. This very thought is clearly portrayed in his sonnet “When I have
fears” as well. The poet initiates the sonnet with the following lines.
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When we have a glance over the ode superficially, we can
understand that the ode comprises of three stanzas. In the first stanza the
poet deals with the fruitfulness and the maturity of autumn. In the second
stanza he speaks about the mid autumn and the yields of it through personifying
the autumn. In the last stanza he epics the twilight moment of the autumn and
the beginning of spring with an ample use of audible imageries. So, the poet
proposes the idea of impermanent of nature by stating the stages of autumn as
it can be seen outwardly.
When we go deeply into the ode, it’s peculiar that the Impermanent
of nature is stated in the very first line of the ode. The poet starts the ode
with “The season of mists and mellow
fruitfulness”. The word “Mist”
shows the impermanent clearly, because the mist vanishes when the sun appears.
Through that the poet proposes the idea of impermanent at the beginning of the
ode.
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And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
In the above lines the poet states that the bees assume that the
warm day will never come and this season will not cease. They are enjoying the
“Sweet Kernel” of the flowers. They
have ample of flowers to get the honey from. So, they are in the imagination of
everlasting autumn, but the poet implies a thought in these lines that the bees
are in delusion. They wish to have the autumn forever, but it is passing. When
the time comes, it has to keep going and leave the way to the upcoming one.
In the second stanza, the poet passes his concentration to the
harvesting and the activities in mid autumn. Mid autumn is the time of
harvesting. Through personification the poet describes the autumn. The autumn
is personified as the harvester, reaper, gleaner, and watcher of cyder-press.
All the above mentioned works are under taken by the farmers in the mid autumn.
The farmers harvest their paddy fields, they reap them, people glean and
collect the left over, and they make juices from the fruits. While doing all
these things they are rarely admired by the nature and autumn as they are very
busy with their works. In the second stanza the poet put forward the idea that
the autumn has done its part. It has given its yield to the people. The people
harvested their paddy fields and they have kept them in safe places. Now it is
the time for the autumn to depart, because someone is going to be present here
and occupy the place of autumn.
“Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
thou watchest the last oozing hours”
The phrase “oozing hours” suggests as if the autumn is
waiting patiently for the arrival of the winter.
In the last stanza, there are many words and phrases which are
related to death can be found, Such as soft-dying day, wailful choir, mourn,
and wind lives and dies. All these words and phrases suggest the death,
because death gives an end to the life. Death shows the fidelity and impermanent of life. The poet takes these words to describe the twilight
moment of the autumn. Through the use of these words and phrases the poet shows
the impermanent of autumn. It gives the idea that the autumn is going to leave
the place, while making the creatures to yearn for that.
Moreover! The "barred clouds bloom the soft-dying
day," and "the light wind lives or dies" give premonition
of mortality of the nature. It says that the day is dying and the gnats, lambs,
crickets, and birds all seem to be aware of the approaching darkness. The
"full-grown lambs" bleat as they understand their destiny, because
the full-grown lambs are slaughtered at the end of the autumn. All these sounds
are portrayed as the mourning of the creatures for the departure of the autumn.
On the other hand it can be considered as the farewell of the creatures for the
autumn and the premonition of them for the upcoming season.
On the other hand! The autumn will
be followed by the cold and barrenness of winter, winter will in turn give way
to a fresh spring. The seasons pass, the nature is impermanent. When the summer
passes autumn falls, when autumn leaves the winter falls. In a nutshell the
nature is not permanent. It is always moving. It will not be stable.
Apart from that, the poet says that all
the seasons have their good and bad. This is implicitly conveyed with wonderful
effect in the very last line of the ode. “and gathering swallows twitter in
the skies” in one way the line gives a premonition of the coming winter,
for the swallows are gathering in preparation to migrate to warmer climes. Yet
we remember that migratory birds return when the cold weather ends, so that the
very hint of their impending departure carries with it an implied suggestion of
their reappearance when warm days come again.
To sum up! “Ode to autumn” is a
short poem written by a Romantic poet John Keats in his last few days of life.
He wrote this poem when he walked the English countryside in the autumn of 1819. He was
admired by the beauty of nature. He suggests the impermanent of nature in the
poetic lines through fine division of stanzas and stating the stages of autumn
in them vividly. This ode is a clear illustration for the impermanent of
nature.
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