Ode
to a Nightingale
MY
heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or
emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis
not through envy of thy happy lot, 5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
10
O
for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting
of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt
mirth!
O
for a beaker full of the warm South! 15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world
unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest
dim:
20
Fade
far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The
weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other
groan;
Where
palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, 25
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and
dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
30
Away!
away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But
on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already
with thee! tender is the night, 35
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes
blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy
ways. 40
I
cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But,
in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The
grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer
eves. 50
Darkling
I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd
him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now
more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul
abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in
vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
60
Thou
wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The
voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps
the self-same song that found a path 65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for
home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70
Forlorn!
the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu!
the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu!
adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
Ode
to a nightingale
INTERPRETATION:
To start let's first introduce
our poet, John Keats was a key member of the Romantic movement in English
literature. Essentially, Romantic poetry explores how the natural world and the
inner, emotional world of the poet come together.
As you'll see, Keats' 'Ode to
a Nightingale' is an excellent example of this kind of poetry. Written in 1819.
Only two years before Keats died of tuberculosis. The poem explores the ideas
of mortality, ecstasy, and impermanence. Because the poem is an ode, it
directly addresses its subject, always keeping the nightingale as the focus of
the poem's action.
Right from the beginning of
the poem you can already tell the mood will be sad. The speakers begins as if
he feels angry and sad by the song of the nightingale while listening to it, as
the nightingale drunk something really strong.
The speakers wants to be a
nightingale, he wants to escape all of his worries in life. And he also wants
to drink what the nightingale is drinking. He compares it to the river lethe,
which in greek methology is a poisonous river. He uses the nightingale because
even though the forest is dark and dangerous, and he can’t even see the flowers
or plants around him, he can smell it. To the speaker it wouldn’t be so bad if
he die in that dark forest.
The speakers says the
nightingale can’t die and he must live forever, because many people heard its
song from generation to generation.
All his imaginations and
visions are gone because the nightingale fly away, and leaves the speaker
alone. He felt abandoned and disappointed, he realize that there are a big
difference between reality and dreams.
