Ode to Nightingale
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Ode to Nightingale is poem with eight
stanzas. It is a kind of a process of a poet from reality to dream and dream to
imagination and then again he comes into reality. Keats has not remembered whether
the encounter of his with nightingale was dream or reality but he felt the
beauty of music and fantasy.
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.
The first stanza starts with the extreme
pain of the heart of the poet. The heart of poet has pain and numbness and his
senses are not supporting him. The senses of poet are out of his control
because he is drunk. He has written this poem in painful period of his life as
he says in the stanza that it is like “being too happy in thin happiness”. When he hears the song, his pain is connected
with the melodious sound of nightingale.
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:
In this stanza poet seems very disappointed
and wants to leave this world which has given him an extreme pain. After
hearing the song of nightingale he wants to drink a lot and in the stage of
unconsciousness he will fade away in forest with the bird. He wants to escape
from this world.
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.
In this stanza he expresses the world and
its miseries. The youth suffers in this world that youth leads towards paleness
and then dies, as Keats himself was dying. In this world he does not want to
live where love has no faith and it changes day by day from one to another.
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.
Poet first wants to escape from this
world by the help of wine but now he says that his power of imagination is enough
for him to leave this world of harsh reality. He wants to fly on the chariot of
his reality. He wants to live with birds in his dream.
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.
In his imagination he felt the fragrance
of beautiful flowers. In the world of his imagination he saw that near the
place where he has seated, there are lots of flowers which rarely grow on the
mountains. He saw hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine. He has smelled all the
fragrances in his dreams. He was not able to see the flowers by smelling it he also
saw the colours of the flowers.
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.
In this stanza poet describes the concept
of salvation and physical death. He says that if he dies by listening this song
it will be the death of ease. He will be
released from all the pains of the world. His breath is connected with the song
of bird and he is in love with this easeful death. He compares death with
ecstasy.
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.
In this stanza the bird talks about the
immortality of bird and its song. He says that the bird will die after some
years, but its song will remain in the sense of all for many years and alo in
this nature and trees. The song will remain alive as nightingale. He says the
soul will left the body but the memory and senses will be there forever. He projects
the tragedy of human life and how the world is surrounded by the concept of
death.
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?
The word “Forlorn” rings like the
bell and breaks the imagination of the poet. The poet is back from the world of
imagination and from the company of bird and now he is with himself. The poet
is not able to decide whether it was a dream or his real vision? He is confused
but also satisfied.
