John Keats composed ‘To Autumn‘ on September 19th 1819, after a walk near Winchester one evening. In a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds written a couple of days later, he described the impression the scene had made on him: “How beautiful the season is now – How fine the air.”

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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease…

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Tragically, this meditation on the transience of life was his last major work before he died at just 25. It’s still one of the most iconic poems ever written about the season.