<P> "To Autumn" describes, in its three stanzas, three different aspects of the season: its fruitfulness, its labour and its ultimate decline . Through the stanzas there is a progression from early autumn to mid autumn and then to the heralding of winter . Parallel to this, the poem depicts the day turning from morning to afternoon and into dusk . These progressions are joined with a shift from the tactile sense to that of sight and then of sound, creating a three - part symmetry which is not present in Keats's other odes . </P> <P> As the poem progresses, Autumn is represented metaphorically as one who conspires, who ripens fruit, who harvests, who makes music . The first stanza of the poem represents Autumn as involved with the promotion of natural processes, growth and ultimate maturation, two forces in opposition in nature, but together creating the impression that the season will not end . In this stanza the fruits are still ripening and the buds still opening in the warm weather . Stuart Sperry says that Keats emphasises the tactile sense here, suggested by the imagery of growth and gentle motion: swelling, bending and plumping . </P> <P> In the second stanza Autumn is personified as a harvester, to be seen by the viewer in various guises performing labouring tasks essential to the provision of food for the coming year . There is a lack of definitive action, all motion being gentle . Autumn is not depicted as actually harvesting but as seated, resting or watching . In lines 14--15 the personification of Autumn is as an exhausted labourer . Near the end of the stanza, the steadiness of the gleaner in lines 19--20 again emphasises a motionlessness within the poem . The progression through the day is revealed in actions that are all suggestive of the drowsiness of afternoon: the harvested grain is being winnowed, the harvester is asleep or returning home, the last drops issue from the cider press . </P> <P> The last stanza contrasts Autumn's sounds with those of Spring . The sounds that are presented are not only those of Autumn but essentially the gentle sounds of the evening . Gnats wail and lambs bleat in the dusk . As night approaches within the final moments of the song, death is slowly approaching alongside the end of the year . The full - grown lambs, like the grapes, gourds and hazel nuts, will be harvested for the winter . The twittering swallows gather for departure, leaving the fields bare . The whistling red - breast and the chirping cricket are the common sounds of winter . The references to Spring, the growing lambs and the migrating swallows remind the reader that the seasons are a cycle, widening the scope of this stanza from a single season to life in general . </P>

Who wrote season of mist and mellow fruitfulness