Poet John Keats |
Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900. |
John Keats. 1795–1821 |
624. Ode to a Nightingale |
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, | 5 |
But being too happy in thine happiness, | |
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, | |
In some melodious plot | |
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, | |
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. | 10 |
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been | |
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, | |
Tasting of Flora and the country-green, | |
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! | |
O for a beaker full of the warm South! | 15 |
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, | |
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, | |
And purple-stainèd mouth; | |
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, | |
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: | 20 |
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 grey hairs, | 25 |
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. | 30 |
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, | 35 |
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. | 40 |
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, | |
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, | |
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet | |
Wherewith the seasonable month endows | |
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; | 45 |
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. | 50 |
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 musèd rhyme, | |
To take into the air my quiet breath; | |
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, | 55 |
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. | 60 |
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 | 65 |
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, | |
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; | |
The same that ofttimes hath | |
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam | |
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. | 70 |
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 famed to do, deceiving elf. | |
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades | 75 |
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? | 80 |
Source: Bartleby.com - http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html
John Keats, 1795-1821
Ode to a Nightingale: Written May 1819, Publ January 1829
Biography
http://www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason/poets/john_keats.shtml
To some he is the king of the Romantic poets. John Keats only lived for 25 years, but in that time managed to produce an array of sensual poems that have reverberated across literature and popular culture.
Born in 1795, Keats came from a modest background and had lost both his parents by the time he was 15. From a young age he wanted to be a poet, but studied medicine at Guy's Hospital. There he began communicating with Leigh Hunt, an established poet who praised Keats' work and encouraged him to give up his studies and concentrate on literature full-time. Keats developed the notion of "negative capability" - the idea that the poet must be able to lose himself in an imaginative experience to create great poetry.
The struggle of the poet to achieve this ideal state is explored in poems such as Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn . Around 1818 Keats contracted tuberculosis. The following year he met the unrequited love of his life Fanny Brawne, and it is this period which gave rise to the beguilingly beautiful odes for which he is best remembered. In summer 1820 Keats travelled to Italy to recuperate. However he fell ill during the journey and died in 1821. He is buried in Rome, under the epitaph: 'Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.'
The struggle of the poet to achieve this ideal state is explored in poems such as Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn . Around 1818 Keats contracted tuberculosis. The following year he met the unrequited love of his life Fanny Brawne, and it is this period which gave rise to the beguilingly beautiful odes for which he is best remembered. In summer 1820 Keats travelled to Italy to recuperate. However he fell ill during the journey and died in 1821. He is buried in Rome, under the epitaph: 'Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.'
Keats' impact is hard to overestimate. Keats didn't just stir fellow poets, such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, his influence can still be found in books as wildly diverse as Neil Gaiman's graphic novels and science fiction writer Dan Simmons.
The Romantics - Liberty (BBC documentary)
The Romantics - Eternity (BBC documentary) BBC History Essentials
Byron, Keats and Shelley lived short lives, but the radical
way in which they lived them would change the world.
For additional notes, summary, and analysis link here to Keats' Kingdom
or
References
John Keats - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats
Ode to a Nightingale - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_a_Nightingale
John Keat's Six Odes of 1819 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Keats%27s_1819_odes
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