"Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too." So often, people look back upon their youth and wish that they still had it before them. Our natural tendency is to fear old age, to see it as the precursor to death, rather than a time of life, desirable in its own right. However, in John Keats' poem, To Autumn, he urges us not to take this view, but to see old age as a beautiful and enviable state of life, rather than something to be feared.

First of all, it must be established that Keats is even speaking about old age. After all, he does not directly refer to it in the poem. Therefore, if he is speaking about it at all, it must be indirectly, through the use of metaphor, and indeed, one sees that this...