Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats
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In this famous ode the poet, listening to the nightingale's rapturous song, is plunged into a state of aching ecstasy 'as though of hemlock I had drunk'. Longing to escape the weariness, fever and fret of human life, where 'men sit and hear each other groan', youth grows pale and dies, and beauty and love cannot last, he yearns to fade away with the bird, first through a 'draught of vintage' and then on 'the viewless wings of Poesy'. He calls the nightingale an 'immortal Bird', whose voice was heard in ancient days by emperor and clown, and by the biblical Ruth 'sick for home', and which charmed 'magic casements'. But the word 'forlorn' tolls him back 'to my sole self': the fancy cannot cheat for ever. The bird's plaintive anthem fades away, and the poet is left uncertain, 'Was it a vision, or a waking dream? … Do I wake or sleep?'. The poem explores the tension between the immortal ideal of art and the transient, sorrowful reality of human existence.
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Aching ecstasy
The poet's heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains his senses, as if he had drunk hemlock or a dull opiate. This is not from envy of the bird but from being 'too happy in thine happiness', overwhelmed by the nightingale singing 'of summer in full-throated ease' in the melodious shadows of the trees.
Longing to escape
He longs for 'a draught of vintage', wine tasting of Flora and the warm south, to 'fade away into the forest dim' with the bird, and thus forget the miseries the nightingale has never known: 'the weariness, the fever, and the fret' of a world where men groan, youth grows 'pale, and spectre-thin, and dies', and beauty and love cannot endure.
The immortal bird
Borne away not by wine but on 'the viewless wings of Poesy' (imagination), the poet addresses the nightingale as an 'immortal Bird' not 'born for death'. Its self-same song was heard in ancient days by emperor and clown, by the homesick Ruth amid the alien corn, and charmed 'magic casements, opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn'.
The return to self
The very word 'forlorn' tolls the poet back 'to my sole self': the fancy cannot cheat so well as it is famed to do. The bird's 'plaintive anthem' fades over the meadows, stream and hillside into the next valley. Left alone, the poet wonders whether it was 'a vision, or a waking dream', and whether he wakes or sleeps.