In his poem "To the Nile," John Keats offers a speaker who personifies the River Nile and emphasizes its impressive qualities, which include its service to humankind and adding beauty to its surroundings. Keats employs the literary devices of apostrophe and personification in the speaker’s statements and questions to the river. Apostrophe is direct address to another person or an animal, inanimate object, or abstract concept. Personification is the attribution of human qualities to non-human beings, objects, or abstractions. The speaker praises the river's leadership as a "Chief" and its nurturing or curative effects as a "Nurse."

The speaker connects the river’s physical length to the temporal length of its service, which dates back to when "the world began." Twice they use the term "fruitful," first noting that this is what "we" call the river, then questioning whether the accuracy of that notion. Posing questions and raising the doubts of others, then answering those questions with emphatic affirmatives serves to strengthen the speaker’s positive opinion.

Another repeated word is "green," as the speaker contrasts the river’s ability to nurture people and animals with the desert landscape through which it passes. The river creates "green rushes" and "green isles." The speaker also connects the natural fertility that the river endows with human knowledge and creativity. The ignorance that would make people doubt the river’s contributions is called "a barren waste."

What examples from the poem "To the Nile" show how John Keats admires the beauty of the Nile?

Keats admires the Nile throughout the sonnet. He calls it "fruitful" twice, which brings to mind the beautiful image of an abundance of growing food. He also states that it has been the "nurse" or caretaker of "swart" (which means darker-skinned) nations for thousands of years: "since the world began." He also pictures it as a seductive land where a person can rest. However, the most beautiful images of this river occur at the end of the poem. Here, the narrator, using apostrophe as he has throughout the sonnet to address the Nile, states that

Thou [you] dost bedew
Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sunrise. Green isles hast thou too,
And to the sea as happily dost haste.

Keats finds the Nile beautiful because he imagines it as similar to rivers in England. It "bedews," or moistens, "green rushes" growing near the water, just as English rivers do. It enjoys the "pleasant sunrise," as do English rivers. As the biggest rivers in England are dotted with "green isles," so is the Nile. Finally, like British rivers, the Nile rushes into the sea. Although the Nile is appreciated for the abundance it has afforded darker-skinned people, its main beauty, in the eyes of Keats's speaker, is in its similarity to England, which by implication has the most beautiful rivers of all.

Keats also renders the Nile beautiful and relatable by personifying it: it enjoys the sunrise as a human does, and the narrator pictures it "happily" hastening off to meet the sea.