S8E6: "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

In this eighth season of The Well Read Poem, we are reading six poems about birds. Since antiquity, birds have supplied rich material to poets, being by turns regal, charming, absurd, delicate, dangerous, and philosophical creatures. This season is dedicated to the animal lovers in our audience, particularly to Emily Raible who suggested the subject in the first place.

Today's poem is "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats. Poem begins at timestamp 2:23.

"Ode to a Nightingale"

by John Keats

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?