Archaic words or phrases are those that have long-since fallen out of the current vernacular. "Ode to Autumn" is (if you will excuse the pun) ripe with archaic words that serve to illustrate the timelessness of the poems sentiment, as well confound new-comers to poetry of this time period.A quick scan of the poem will reveal the use of the ever popular "Thee", "Thou", "Thy", and "Hath". These words are frequently used in poetry of Keats' time and earlier. In modern English none of these words see any use, but all have modern equivalents.
Both Thee and Thou are archaic forms the the modern word "You", The difference being that Thee is used when referring to the subject of a sentence and Thou is used when referring to the object of a sentence.
Thy is the archaic first person singular form of the word "your". English used to distinguish between the singular and plural versions of the word your. Not featured in this poem is the word "ye", the plural version of thy (we're all familiar with "hear ye, hear ye!")
In addition to these words you can find the words oft, hath, and dost.
Oftis an archaic form of the English word "often" in addition to being archaic it is also a poetic form of the word, meaning you would not normally see this word used out of verse.
Hath is the archaic third person singular form of the modern word "Have"
Dost is the archaic form of the second person singular form of the word "Do"
On top of these common archaic words, Keats uses a few phrases that would be foreign to a modern English speaker:
When Keats refers to "Thatch-eves" in line four of the poem he is referring to the part of the bottom part of a roof that hangs over the sides of a cottage.
In line 5 Keats uses the phrase "cottage-trees" this phrase distinguishes the trees he is talking about as trees that would have grown naturally by a simple village as opposed to trees grown on a large orchard.
In line 32 of the poem Keats refers to a "Garden-croft" this is simply an enclosed garden.
With a clear understanding of these words and phrases it should be a simple matter to understand the rest of the poem.
Archaic words are those that are no longer in common use or have lost their original meaning, yet can still be used to lend a certain historical tone to works of creative writing. There are a number of such examples in "To Autumn." Keats uses them mainly to establish a connection between himself and those writers of the past he so much admires such as Shakespeare and Spenser. The timelessness of the poem's subject matter also makes the use of archaic words legitimate, rather than simply an exercise in affectation or contrivance.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
"Thee," "thy," and "thou" crop up quite a lot in "To Autumn." Such archaisms were still quite commonly used by poets in Keats's day, although Wordsworth and Coleridge challenged this convention in their "Lyrical Ballads." Nevertheless, they were not used in everyday speech or normal conversation.
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Nowadays, we'd say "You watch..." so this is another example of archaic words, as is the following:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep...
In current usage we'd say "You do keep," or more commonly, simply "You keep."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn
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