John Keats

John Keats was one of the prominent figures who belong to the second generation
of the romantic poets. He was called the tragic poet of Romanticism because his
life was full of misery and sickness. John Keats, the eldest of four children, was
born in 1795 to Thomas Keats and his wife Frances. His father was a stableman
who fell from his horse and died when Keats was at the age of eight. After the
death of his father, Keats’ mother left her children and remarried. The children
lived with their grandmother who died after few years. At the age of fourteen,
Keats mother died of consumption. In his early life, Keats trained to become a
surgeon, a career which he would later drop for the sake of poetry. He wrote many
poems but did not make a great deal of money. Therefore, he was barely able to
provide his needs. In 1817, John nursed his brother Tom, who had consumption,
till his death in 1818. During the time of his brother’s illness, Keats met Frances
Brawne and engaged her. However, Keats’ financial instability delayed his
marriage. He became jealous and depressed. Frances left him and he was shocked.
In 1820, Keats was diagnosed with consumption and his doctors advised him to
move to a warmer place. So, he went to Rome and remained there till his death in
February 1821. Some biographers believe that Keats got infected while he was
nursing his brother. Keats’ poetry is compared to Shakespeare’s poetry. The
language of his poem is poetical and highly sensuous as well as musical which has
the ability to stir the feelings. His poems contain a moral lesson and philosophical
depth.

Ode to a Nightingale
Introduction

In the early months of 1819, Keats was living with his friend Charles Brown in
Hampstead. In April, a nightingale built its nest in the garden. Keats was
influenced by the song of that nightingale. One morning, he took his chair from the
breakfast table and sat under the nightingale’s nest. The nightingale’s song inspired
him to write Ode to a Nightingale which was first printed in July, 1819. The poem
consists of eight stanzas and each stanza has ten lines.

Analysis

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.

In the first stanza, the poet’s heart experiences a sensation of pain. His body is
benumbed and paralyzed. On hearing the song, his five senses seemed to be
overpowered by sleep as if he had drunk hemlock, a benumbing poisonous plant,
or opium, a drug whose effect is to benumb the senses and blunt the feelings. He
feels like one who has sunk in Lethe, Greek river of forgetfulness, and become
indifferent to his surroundings as if he began to move away from our world. The
poet assures that he is not jealous of the nightingale’s joy. On the contrary, he has
felt excessively happy because of the nightingale’s happiness. “That thou, light-
winged Dryad of the trees,” Dryad according to Greek mythology is a nymph
inhabiting a forest or a tree. Here, the nightingale is called Dryad of trees because
it lives among the tress. The nightingale is also described as “light-winged”
because it is capable of flying without much effort. In the last three, the bird seems
to be singing in summer which is a lovely season. The bird sings in a loud voice,
but it sings effortlessly and spontaneously.

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 the second stanza, Keats expresses his wish to drink a wine that has been cooled
for a long time under the earth. Flora is the goddess of the flowers and spring. He
wants a wine that will remind him of the countryside and the warm weather of
Provence which is the name of a region in southern France. It is famous not only
for its wines, but for its love of song and dance. In short, he wants a wine that is
taken from nature. Moreover, Keats tells us that he wishes to drink wine from
Hippocrene, a sacred fountain from Greek mythology used to get poetic
inspiration. He wants to drink from the fountain in order to escape from the real
world and join the world of the nightingale (ideal 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 the third stanza, the poet expresses a desire to melt away from the world of
human beings and forget the sorrows and misfortunes of life which the nightingale
has never known. Life, Keats says, is depressing because it is full of “weariness,”
“fever,” and “fret.” He wishes to forget the depressing, tiresome conditions of life
and forget the cries of people who are constantly suffering and uttering cries of
pain. Perhaps the poet here criticizes the industrial revolution and shows that
people were suffering and working exhaustedly without tasting the meaning of life.
In this world, palsy attacks the old people and consumption attacks the young who
wither, grow thin like skeletons, and die. On the other hand, beauty and love in this
world is shortly lived. Beautiful women cannot retain the brightness of eyes for a
long time, and the passion of youthful lovers has only short duration. A moment of
deep thinking induces a mood of sadness, and the poet’s falls into a mood of
sadness. This stanza echoes the poet’s personal grief caused by the premature death
of his brother Tom and the breakdown of his engagement. There is also a contrast
between the sadness of the poet and the happiness of the nightingale. The
nightingale is happy because he does not have the ability to think and consequently
he would never know sadness.

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.

In the fourth stanza, the poet asks the bird to fly away because he decided to follow
him. He decided to join the ideal world of the nightingale. However, the poet
refuses to be carried in Bacchus’s chariot which is drawn by leopards. Bacchus is
the god of wine and in Greek mythology he is usually represented as riding chariot
drawn by leopards. The poet means to say that drinking wine is not a suitable
solution. Wine can free his imagination and lead him away from people and reality.
But this solution is no logical because wine has a short effect. He wants to escape
from his tragic world through writing poetry. In the next lines, the poet is
transported into the nightingale’s world. He begins describing it. He says that the
moon is shining, surrounded by the stars, but the place is dark because very little
light can penetrate the thickly-growing leaves of trees.

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 the fifth stanza, the poet says that he cannot see what flowers grow at his feet or
what blossoms grow on the branches of the trees. By the scents, he can guess that
the place is full of white hawthorns, sweet-briers, violets, and buds of musk-roses
which attract different kinds of flies. This stanza reflects Keats’ interest in the
beauty of nature. There is also a contrast the world of the poet and the world of
nightingale. The world of the bird embodies the romantic way of living, beauty,
innocence, as well as musicality. On the other hand, the world of the poet is filled
with sadness and weariness.

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.

As Keats listens to the nightingale’s song in the darkness of the forest, he

remembers how on many occasions in his life he felt attracted by death which ends
the troubles of life and brings peace and comfort. At this particular moment, death
seems to be more attractive than it has ever seemed before. For Keats, dying in this
world is better than living in the real world. Therefore, he wishes to die at this hour
of midnight while the nightingale is singing its sweet and rapturous song. The
nightingale will continue to sing even when the poet dies and becomes unable to
hear its song. When the poet dies, nightingale will continue to sing and its song
will become a requiem; a funeral song or hymn in which the mourners praise the
dead person.

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 the seventh stanza, the poet contrasts the mortality of the human beings with
immortality of the nightingale’s song. The nightingale’s song has not changed for
centuries. The song which the nightingale is singing and to which the poet is
listening is the same song which must have been heard centuries ago by rich and
poor alike. It is the same song which miserable Ruth has heard while she was
weeping and working in the field. Ruth was a Moabite married to a Jew in Moab;
which is the name of an ancient kingdom whose territory is today located in the
modern state of Jordan. After the death of her husband, she migrated to Palestine
and lived with her mother in law. There she gleaned the corn in the fields of a
kinsman. The idea here is that the song of the nightingale has not changed since the
time when the melancholy Ruth has heard it. Thus, the song of the nightingale has
a permanence or endless life which the human being does not have. In this stanza,
Keats alludes to the idea of literary immortality because the song of the nightingale
resembles the poetry of the romantic poet. According to Keats, poets create
memorable poems that far outlive them.

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 use of the word ‘forlorn’ comes like a shock to the poet. The sound of this
word is the sound of a bell which brings the poet back from the company of the
nightingale to his lonely self and reminds him of his forlorn condition. This word
interrupts the poet’s imagination and calls him back to the realities of life. Keats
uses simile and says that the poetic imagination is like a deceptive fairy. Here, the
poet means that he won’t let imagination deceive him and make him think that he
can run away from reality. The poet bids farewell to the bird’s sad song because it
is departing. As the song of the nightingale becomes more distant and fades away,
Keats’s poetic imagination declines and his vision fades. He returns to the painful
realities of life. In the last two lines, the poet wonders whether the nightingale’s
song was an actual song or he was merely seeing a vision. He cannot hear the song
anymore. The poet asks whether he was a wake or dreaming in his sleep.

Themes

Immortality vs mortality

Escapism

The beauty of nature

Death