Ode to a Nightingale
By John Keats
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,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
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 gray hairs,
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.
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,
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.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
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.
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 mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
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.
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
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
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 fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
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?
Main themes
i) Theme of escapism
ii) Myth of Hemlock
iii) Myth of Lethe
iv) Myth of Dryad
v) Myth of Bachhus
vi) Theme of death
Critical Appreciation of poem
Ode is usually celebrated to a person or object to which it is dedicated. In this poem the poet wants to celebrate the immortality of the voice of nightingale
. The poet visited his friends house and there he loss in the world of imagination when he listen the melodious song of nightingale.The poet wants to go somewhere, far from the worries and troubles of the world. He wants to flee away with the nightingale in the forest where no one was present to disturb him.
In the very beginning of the poem the poet says that his heart aches and he feels like he has drunken poison. There is also a mention of the poisonous plant Hemlock. As per Greek Mythology Socrates took Hemlock when he was supposed as criminal for corrupting youth and therefore he was put to death. The poet feels like he has drunk opiate. The poet wants to forget the memory of his past and therefore he also wishes to drunk Lethe river. There is also one ancient myth about the river Lethe, that whoever drunk the water of Lethe, he might have forget all the past memories.
The poet is suffering a lot, he also clarifies in next lines of the stanza that he was not jealous of the happiness of nightingale. He is happy for the bird's happiness but at the same time he is sad for himself. The nightingale was happy because it goes on singing day and night from the branches of one tree to another. There is also one more mythical character used that is Dryad. Dryad is a female spirit that lives in the trees.
The poet again wants to drink a strong wine Vintage. Keats addresses the earth as giant wine cellar. As because the poet drinks wine from earth, it taste likes flowers and green plants. The poet uses the reference of Hippocrene, fountain of muses which is the group eight women who encourages struggling poets. The poet wants to drink something that makes him great, he wants to drink the blushful hippocrene. Blushful indicates the reddish colour of wine. Then in next line the poet express the effect of drinking wine, it makes his lips purple. The poet after drinking wine, wanted to fade away in the dense forest with the nightingale, beyond the material world, beyond all the problems and worries. In short he wants to die, end his life.
The poet wish to flee away and wants to forgets all the past memory. There the poet thinks that the bird is free of all the troubles and worries of the world that normally a human being have. Human being have sufferings, troubles, fever in life. In the next line the poet shows that his enemy is time, time makes all the young human into old but it cannot affect the the voice of nightingale which remains immortal from ages after ages. The poet says that thinking makes people sad and happy, otherwise there is no matter of all such worries. In this world nothing remains permanent, all things get destroys and damage. Even the love and beauty of beloved is mortal.
Now after describing the worriness of the world the poet finally wants to flee away and he no more rely upon the Bacchus. There poet used one more myth of Bacchus, the Greek God of wine. The poet thinks that only by drinking he cannot forget all the troubles. With the wings of imagination of poetry the poet wishes to fly away. The poets wants to fly in the world of nightingale but his mind doesn't help him in doing so. His mind becomes the big hurdle therefore he meets nightingale in his imagery world. There is no light, only darkness in the world of nightingale.
The poet goes on describing the world of nightingale, that is night world. Even in the world of darkness the speaker guessing the different kinds of plants like the grass, fruit trees, white hawthorne and also smells all of them like a bouquet. The poet goes on in experience things while being alone in the dark forest, he is not only smelling the fragrant of plants but also hearing the sound of all things. He hears the sound of flies. The poet feels summer and autumn at same time. It indicates that the poet lives the world of strict reality, all the rules of nature were not followed in the imagery world of poet.
The poet is alone in the darkness, and this loneliness also indicates the theme of death. He feels like death is the another way to free himself from all the worries of the world.
The poet developed a kind of affection with the death, Keats was obsessed with the idea of death. Even in real life also Keats died very young. Keats chose the time of midnight to die peacefully while listening to the song of nightingale.
Then in the next stanza the poet speaks about the immortality of the voice of Nightingale. No generation affects the art of the bird, the music remains immortal from time to time, all the generation will listen to the song of nightingale.
The nightingale flies away and leaves the poet all alone. The poet now returns to the normal world out of imagination. The poet uses the word forlorn to signify that in a sudden moment his all dreams breaks down into reality. The poet remains unsuccessful in escaping the world and he says goodbye to nightingale, he uses the French word 'Adieu' for that.After all these things happens, the speaker becomes uncertain of the fact that whether he really feels all the things or was it just a dream? He even was not sure about the presence of nightingale, he feels like whether she sings in real or just in his mind. The poet cannot differentiate the fancy things and the real things.
