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,
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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Context - dominated by thoughts of death, underpinned by meditations on immortality and on the

finite nature of joy. The previous year, Keats' brother Tom had died from tuberculosis, the illness
that had also killed their mother. When writing the poem, Keats was aware that he himself had
started to experience the first symptoms of the disease.

The poem's rich imagery emphasises a desire for an escape into a world of hallucinogenic bliss, with
references to 'drowsy numbness', a 'dull opiate' and wine with 'beaded bubbles winking at the
brim' . Speaking to the nightingale and its exquisite song, he writes: 'Though the dull brain perplexes
 and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night'. But the ecstasy brought by the nightingale is
itself transient, and as the bird flies away the poet is left back in thoughts of hopelessness.

After finding out he has tuberculosis, the sadness grief are reflected in his ode. The poem also shows
Keats has shown some acceptance to his medical condition. Motifs and imagery are frequently used
in his poems. Archaic and Emotive language also conveyed in the poem.

Ode: To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Main language features – Descriptive devices - literal to allegorical, focusing rhyme, metre,
syntax, allusion and language of nature.
Archaic language
Personification - gods and demi-gods (Demeter the goddess)
Alliteration – provides texture to the depth of the beauty of autumn and builds a variety
which expands upon the aesthetics of Autumn as nature which builds interest for the reader
Sibilance (“mists,” “close bosom,” “bless,” “moss’d,” “swell,” “sweet,” “cease,” “cells”)
and o-sounds, both long and short (“mellow,” “bosom,” “load,” “round,” “gourd,” “more,”
“flowers”), help build this impression of combined pleasure and effort and explore the
fruition and completion of Autumn as a phenomenon of natural labour relating to bees
flower work.
Hyphenated adjectives – “bosom-friend, thatch-eaves, cottage-trees, o'er-brimmed” used
to connect the poem and allows slow pacing which connects to the peacefulness of Autumn
Rhyme scheme – Quatrains (changes for the septet in the first stanza)
Metre – Iambic Pentameter (deviations from the metre include spondee (DA-DUM) trochee
(DA-dum) and pyrrhic (da-dum) in certain lines)
Allusions – Greek Allusions, “maturing sun”, “Poppy”
Symbolisms - ancient Greek deities or figures such as Ceres/Demeter the goddess

Context – Odes
no unifying “plot” and no recurring characters; not a narrative prose

Context – Poet’s background

 Keats was born in 1795 to a lower-middle-class family in London.
 His mother succumbed to tuberculosis, the disease that eventually killed Keats himself.
 At 15, Keats entered into a medical apprenticeship, and eventually he went to medical
school. He nursed his brother who had tuberculosis before he was also diagnosed. But by
the time he turned 20, he abandoned it to devote himself to poetry.
 In Hampstead, he fell in love with a young girl named Fanny Brawne. He had no money to
support her. During this time, Keats began to experience the extraordinary creative
inspiration that enabled him to write, at a frantic rate, all his best poems in the time before
he died. His health and his finances declined sharply, and he set off for Italy in the summer
of 1820, hoping the warmer climate might restore his health.
 Keats died barely a year after finishing the ode “To Autumn,” in February 1821. (he was 26
years old)
 Died early, not an idealist, suffered with pain, but still desperately holding onto Life, Love of
beauty

Context – Poet’s link with romanticism

Keats contributed to early 19th century Romanticism, a movement that espoused the sanctity of
emotion and imagination, and privileged the beauty of the natural world. Many ideas and themes
evident in his poems are quintessentially Romantic concerns: the beauty of nature, the relation
between imagination and creativity, the response of the passions to beauty and suffering, and the
transience of human life in time. This lead to the love of art, music, drama. The sumptuous sensory
language in which the odes are written, their idealistic concern for beauty and truth, and their
expressive agony in the face of death are all Romantic preoccupations. Keats believed the
philosophy that when understanding humanity, he had to believe in the optimistic side of human as
well as the suffering and pain.

Idealists believing in power and imagination, creativity & emotion. They were radical on ideas such
as expressing emotions, sexuality, love, at the time when society was repressive. They were written
in a time where these ideas are more novel and more closes-minded. The poets believed in being
truthful of their feelings (used philosophy in the writing about war).
They were anti-war, anti-trade, supporting the environment (nature nurtures man), lead to idealistic
and optimistic view of nature. Their tone is passionate with usage of exclamation. Society believes
they are childish (believed in repressing emotions in public and not showing any, find the romantic
poets a disrespect to their masculinity).

More aggressive and traditional when they look back on Ancient Greek (Greek mythology alluded to
his poems), also Greek Art. They believe that classical era appreciated debate, beauty, art, drama,
and they see it missing in the new industrial society. They thought ancient culture are preferable.
The Greek Gods represents form of nature and art, and are frequently alluded in his poems.

During the Victorian era, industrial revolution (factories, mass production developing, land
subdivided for business trade are all considered progress) all lead to a changed mindset.