Ode to a Nightingale

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

MY HEART aches, and a drowsy numbness pains I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: Wherewith the seasonable month endows ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; But being too happy in thine happiness, — White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves; In some melodious plot And mid-May’s eldest child, Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

II. VI.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Darkling I listen; and, for many a time Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, I have been half in love with easeful Death, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! To take into the air my quiet breath; O, for a beaker full of the warm South, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad And purple-stained mouth; In such an ecstasy! That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — And with thee fade away into the forest dim: To thy high requiem become a sod.

III. VII.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! What thou amongst the leaves hast never known, No hungry generations tread thee down; The weariness, the fever, and the fret The voice I hear this passing night was heard Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; In ancient days by emperor and clown: Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, Where but to think is to be full of sorrow She stood in tears amid the alien corn; And leaden-eyed despairs, The same that oft-times hath Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

IV. VIII.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Forlorn! the very word is like a bell Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, To toll me back from thee to my sole self! But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Adieu! The fancy cannot cheat so well Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. Already with thee! tender is the night, Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays; Up the hillside; and now ’tis buried deep But here there is no light, In the next valley-glades: Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep? ways.

— John Keats