You have a really good answer here already, so I'll just
add a few more details.
This poem is an ode, a tribute,
like a toast to this season of harvest--"To Autumn." We expect to hear positive things
after hearing that title, and we do.
The imagery in stanza
one is of ripeness, of a world ready for harvest: "fruitfulness," "maturing," "load and
bless," "swell," "plump," and "o'er-brimm'd." Hard to miss this picture of creation as
a ripened field ready to harvest.
Stanza two imagery is
full of harvest language: "store," "a granary floor," "winnowing," "a half-reap'd
furrow," "hook," "swath," "gleaner," "cyder-press," and "oozings." Clearly this
picture is one of a harvest either in progress or completed. These images are still full
of life, rather than depicting death or emptiness.
Finally,
the third stanza asks us not to think of spring (a time of newness and rebirth) as being
better than autumn--traditionally a time before winter and the death/hibernation of all
creation, including man.
"Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are
they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music
too."
This is also a
beautiful time. Note the stubble in the harvested field reflecting the glow of a
setting sun; the river swallows who perform as a "wailful choir" as they dip and swoop
with the breeze; and the lambs and crickets and robins making their familiar
sounds.
This poem is a tribute to autumn, rarely seen--in
poetry, anyway--as a time of beauty. While it is a time of reaping what has been sown,
metaphorically fall is a precursor to impending death. The narrator asks us to examine
the beauty of this season without any looking ahead to the winter which will inevitably
come.
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