The 'Furrow* in Keats 1 Ode to Autumn 587 THE 'FURROW IN KEATS' ODE TO A UTUMN In the second stanza of his Ode to Autumn Keats repre- sents Autumn as a sleeping reaper: Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers. One who looks closely at this attractive picture is likely to be puzzled by the word 'furrow', and to ask how there can be furrows in a field where grain is being cut. The furrows of ploughing must have been effaced by the harrowing that pre- cedes sowing, so that a ripened crop and furrows can hardly exist at the same time. Moreover, how can Autumn sleep 'on 1 a furrow? A furrow is the ditch made by a plow, and may be slept in but not on. Can some other interpretation for 'furrow' be found? The poetry of Keats furnishes no other instance of the noun, but 'furrow'd' occurs three times in Endymion (3.223,448,961), and 'furrowing' in Otho the Great (4.2.83). In the first passage the word plainly has its usual meaning: His snow-white brows Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large. The others are similar, though less definite. Turning to the New English Dictionary, one finds that furrow is in poetry 'used loosely for arable land, a piece of plough- ed land, the cornfields.' In the following examples, three of them given by the Dictionary, this meaning appears. Shake- speare writes: You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary, Come hither from the furrow, and be merry. 1 Because of the juxtaposition of the words 'sicklemen' and 'furrow', one feels as though Keats might be echoing this very
1 Tempest 4. 1. 134-5.
