Areopagus Volume LXII

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the sixty second volume of the Areopagus. Autumn is just around the corner (for those of us in the northern hemisphere) but Summer has in the last few days given a mighty, final showing of its golden glory where I am — four days of beating sun and burning nights. John Keats said that it is during Summer we are "nearest unto heaven". Was he right?

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.

The Human Seasons is the name Keats gave to this handsome sonnet. Rum…