Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

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.