Introduction

British Romantic poet John Keats wrote his famous “Ode to a Nightingale” in the spring of 1819. This lyrical poem is set in a garden, perhaps the poet’s own, where a nightingale had built a nest. As Keats listened to the bird’s distinctive song, he reflected on life and death, art and nature, joy and sorrow. He wove these reflections and the questions arising from them into this ode.

Keats actually wrote six odes that spring, but “Ode to a Nightingale” quickly became popular when it appeared in the July 1819 issue of Annals of the Fine Arts. It has since become one of the most anthologized poems in English, for apparently, it resonates with readers who, like the poet, are pondering the deep meanings of the human experience.

Summary

“Ode to a Nightingale” begins with a certain pain: “My heart aches,” the speaker sighs. He is drowsy and numb, not because he envies the nightingale whose song he listens to amid a dark garden but because he is “too happy in thine happiness.” The nightingale sings of summer, easy, sweet, and melodious, but the speaker knows that such happiness cannot last for a human being.

Still, as he listens to the song of the “light-winged Dryad of the trees,” he longs for a “draught of vintage,” for a drink of the past, of the mirth and enjoyment of the countryside, for a “beaker full of the warm South.” He wishes to consume this delightful beverage and slip away from the world, fading “into the forest dim.” The speaker wants to dissolve and forget, immerse himself in nature, far away from the weariness and sorrow of human life, for life fades quickly. Old and young grow pale and die; despair reigns, and even Beauty and Love do not last.

The speaker suddenly exclaims, “Away! away!” He knows how to follow the nightingale: through Poesy. His art can carry him upwards as though on wings and allow him to look upon the moon and stars with new eyes even though he walks where there is little light and much gloom. In the “embalmed darkness” of the garden, the speaker cannot see the flowers or trees but can smell their sweetness and know they are present in all their beauty.

The speaker continues to listen to the nightingale’s song, and as he does, he feels “half in love with easeful Death.” Perhaps, he thinks, it will come softly to take him away, quietly and with no pain. The bird is pouring out its soul in “an ecstasy,” and the speaker, too, would like to get beyond himself, free at last. Yet he knows the nightingale will keep singing, even when he can no longer hear.

There is something immortal about the nightingale. Its song has sounded down through the “hungry generations” from ancient days, Biblical times, and across the world. On land and on sea, even in “faery lands,” the nightingale sings. Nothing can stop it; the music continues; the beauty lasts, charming those who hear it.

Yet the speaker feels forlorn. He says the word “forlorn” is like a bell calling him back to himself, reminding him that even fancy, even imagination and poetry, cannot forever “cheat” him into forgetting reality. The nightingale flies away, its song fading as the bird wings across meadows, over a stream, up a hill, and into a valley. The speaker questions whether he has been in a vision or a dream as the music flees, and he wonders whether he wakes or sleeps.