John Keats Archives - colleen keating

Michael and I taking a “turn in the shrubbery” as Jane Austen recommends many times in her writings. For us it meant a walk around the block . . . but what beauty to behold

POEM IN MAY

“Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness /close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; from John Keats Ode to Autumn

Autumn 2019 has been the most beautiful autumn ever. For me that is because the summer warmth has lingered. And so the colour has given us its rich glory in somewhat balmy days.

Sometimes I wonder how many more autumns will my eyes behold and can they get any more crisp and brisk and sweet in harmony of tone and memory.

If the colours of autumn were music notes

the sound would be a mellow humming tune

with a back ground of bird song crickets and frogs

and our wonderful powerful owl

that comes to perch each evening

on the cedar tree

that brushes against our kitchen window.

We have been vegging (defined as to relax in a mindless way) on Jane Austen this past week

and enjoying Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. (Hugh Grant)

We have two copies of Pride and Prejudice one with Colin Firth as Darcy It was a BBC series and went for hours and one with Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightley.

For Jane Austen, back then, “taking a turn in the shrubbery” is a way of moving both literally and metaphorically “in the proper circles.” In making this daily circuit, women observe the boundaries of taste and convention; reconcile past, present, and future; and redraw the lines of social connection.

For Austen and for her characters, walking is a habitual part of daily life. In letters written in 1805 and in 1806, Austen says, “we do nothing but walk about” and “we walk a good deal”

Hence in accordance with our Jane Austen motive, Michael and I have ‘taken a turn in the shrubbery’ . . . . that is a constitutional walk around the block and heaven was in the oak trees at the end of the street. The crunch of leaves under foot and the sprinkle of leaves that fell silently around us like confetti with their aura of colour, They fell silently and obediently at the slight whim of the air and the still quiet press of the branches.

In Dylan Thomas’ wonderful Autumn poem it was his thirtieth year to heaven hence he can speak of being in his summer at noon watching the autumn colour around him.

I would like to say I stand here in summer noon though all below me lay leaved in Autumn blood but I would have to say to be truthful, I stand in autumn time with it leaved all around me still singing my name in the sky , still falling like tears and leaved with autumn blood under my feet. But his next sentiment I sing with all my heart, he marvelled his birthday away up on the hill looking down on his town bathed in October blood (October of course because it is Wales that is his autumn: here it is May I am standing in right now, writing this)

O may my heart’s truth

Still be sung

On this high hill in a year’s turning. from Dylan Thomas Poem in October