ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

‘Ode to a Nightingale’ was written in 1819. This ode was inspired by the song of a nightingale that had built its nest close to the house of writer’s friend in Hampstead. The song of the bird threw the poet into a sort of trance. The subject of ode is not the bird itself rather its song becomes a symbol of eternal and everlasting beauty. The poet begins to aspire for a life of beauty away from the oppressing world and wishes to enjoy the ever- lasting delight of the immortal beauty.

When the melodious and sweet sound of Nightingale’s enchanting song enters the poet’s ears, the poet’s heart is filled up to the brims with excessive joy. The poet exclaims with boundless delight;

“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains,

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.”

Poet’s physical eyes are being closed and his spiritual are being activated. The poet feels lethargy as if he were intoxicated. He is being transported into an intuitive condition. He feels;

“………. as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drain,

One minute past ………………………… .”

The poet, exalts and praises the nightingale by saying that the Nightingale is a nymph or a fairy who dwells in the trees and her sound echoes in the orchards. Her voice makes the whole atmosphere hypnotic and ecstatic. In this enviable condition, the poet yearns;

“O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been,

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth.”

He further longs to taste;

“O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene.”

The poet wants to drink such wine to be transported to the very world of the nightingale. He says that he would happily reside with her in some desolate forest. He wants to get rid of the cruelties of life.

Rejection of love is also one of the problems in human life. Faithless loves, loveless relation; lusterless eyes and relentless human beings are the ingredients of man’s life. While describing the miseries of life, Keats might have the series of terrible shocks in his mind, the shocks that he received throughout his life.

The next lines in the poem are a feast for senses. The poet describes the night scene in an unsurpassed way;

“And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays.”

The earth is jampacked with darkness. Happiness is possible only in the world of imagination. Now the poet has become so senseless that;

“I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs.”

The poet wishes to die in the quiet atmosphere. The poet asserts that the bird is immortal. No warlike nation can crush the bird. In fact, the song of the bird has become a symbol of eternity and immorality. Because the song has transported the poet into intuition therefore, he can enjoy heavenly delight and blissful happiness. The poet thinks that the bird has been amusing the people since the time immemorial. The same song was heard by Ruth and became a source of delight for her. It was also heard by some damsel kept captivated in the deepest part of the sea.

Then the word “Forlorn” rings like a bell to call the poet back from his imagination. He comes to the real world. He bids farewell to the imaginary world and asserts;

“….. the fancy cannot cheat so well,

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.”

Above all, rapturous delight, wild ecstasy or the blissful happiness can be enjoyed only for a few seconds.

To conclude, the ode to a Nightingale is one of the maturest poems of Keats.