Human Seasons By John Keats - =link=

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness—to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

For Keats, represents the dawn of consciousness and the vigor of youth. He describes it as a time when "fancy clear / Takes in all beauty with an easy span." This is the stage of uncritical absorption. In our "Spring," we are open to the world, soaking up sensory information and aesthetic beauty without the weight of experience or the "pale cast of thought." It is a period of pure potentiality. 2. The Summer of Reflection human seasons by john keats

The sonnet concludes with , which Keats notes is "foregone" or inevitable. He describes it as a "pale misfeature," a chilling reminder of mortality. Yet, in the context of the poem, Winter is not a tragedy; it is a completion. Just as the earth must rest in frozen silence to complete its cycle, the "mind of man" has its own period of closing. It represents the "mortal nature" that Keats was so keenly aware of throughout his short life. The Philosophy of Acceptance Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;