"Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music—Do I wake or sleep?..."See in text(Ode to a Nightingale)
The nightingale’s identity remains fluid and liminal. The bird occupies the blurred line between life and death, sleep and wakefulness. After having sought to escape the world through various means, the speaker is left in a state of bewilderment. The poem veers back and forth between reality and fantasy before ending somewhere in between.
"No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:..."See in text(Ode to a Nightingale)
Keats uses an intriguing spatial metaphor here. The notion of the nightingale in flight rising above the earthly “tread” of generations serves to indicate its timelessness. The rest of the stanza illustrates a series of appearances by the nightingale in different historical and mythological settings. Thus the nightingale’s song becomes yet another vehicle for the speaker to escape his worldly suffering.
"for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,..."See in text(Ode to a Nightingale)
A pattern is emerging. As the poem progresses, the speaker seeks new ways to escape the sorrows of the world: first, through drink and pleasure; next, through poesy; now, through “easeful Death.”
"Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow...."See in text(Ode to a Nightingale)
In this stanza, Keats ruminates on the tragedies of mortality, a theme he explores deeply in his [Ode on a Grecian Urn] (https://www.owleyes.org/text/ode-grecian-urn). In that ode, Keats offers scenes painted on an urn. The ode’s central scene depicts a “fair youth” chasing his beloved. The passion of the chase, the fairness of the youth, and the beauty of the beloved are all frozen for eternity. In this third stanza of “Ode to a Nightingale,” the speaker faces the transient reality of youth and love. Once again, realism tempers idealism.
"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;..."See in text(Ode to a Nightingale)
Here the poem’s tone and subject matter take a turn. The speaker reveals the source of his desire to “fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget.” The reality of worldly suffering pierces the fantasy of pleasure and oblivion. This tension between idealism and realism is perhaps the poem’s central theme.
