Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The View From "Bide-A-Wee"

In this

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 which 'round the thatch-eaves run,



To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core,



To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shell
With a sweet kernel. To set budding more,


And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer hath o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.


Thank you, John Keats. That's the first stanza of "To Autumn," typed from memory, so there may be a glitch or two from published versions.


"Bide-A-Wee" is what we call the little cabin we put on our Wisconsin land. It's Scottish and means "rest a while." Melinda came up with it. It seems to fit, especially the "wee" part.


Happy autumn.

Copyright 2008 by Brett Laidlaw

1 comment:

Waydze said...

What a beauty! Thank you very much for a pleasure of reading your stories with all those vivid pictures, and for the exquisite references to Keats' stanzas. I was born in a small village at Far-Eastern region of Russia, inhabited with not only bears and tigers, but also with the fascinating plants - a lotus, cedar (Siberian pine), ginseng, kolomikta-vine, etc. I lived a country life until 15, and miss it now very much when I'm 30. Caged in Moscow with my higher education, good job and a lazy practice of reading English poetry in the very mornings. Thank you for creation that blend of poesy and the very intimate experiences, which your blog appears to be for me.
Let the winged Fancy roam..