The speaker in "Ode on a Grecian Urn" speaks of the urn as a work of art,

therefore, untouched by time. It exists outside of time, a "Sylvan Historian" pregnant with

meaning of the age it was created, "What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape/Of

deities and mortals, or of both, in Tempe or the dales of Arcady?" [numbers] The speaker

realizes such questions are foolish; the questions are ultimately irrelvant in the aesthetic

experience, What matters is what still stands and can speak for itself, which the urn can

express "A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhym" [number].

The urn arrests life, the youth eternally singing to the maiden. The courtship will

go no further than this tableaux. There is some sorrow in this stasis, "Bold Lover, never,

never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal" [number] However, the speaker is

quick to console the youth (or perhaps himself), "yet do not grieve, she cannot fade,

though hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair" [#].

The urn prompts the series of questions from the speaker, yet non of these ask of

thepurpose of the urn. Not once does he inquire "What did it contain?"

The third stanze emphasizes the joy found in the frozen moment of time, "Ah,

happy, happy Boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu" (21-

22) More happy love! more happy, happy love!For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd/For

ever panting, and for ever young;/All breathing human passion far above,/That leaves a

heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,/A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Art transcends this "burning human passion," that leavs us in sorro, pain, and ultimately

unsatisfied (parching tongue)

The island of the Lotos- eaters is a land arrested in time, "