Apr 25, 2022
In this eighth season of The Well Read Poem, we are reading six
poems about birds. Since antiquity, birds have supplied rich
material to poets, being by turns regal, charming, absurd,
delicate, dangerous, and philosophical creatures. This season is
dedicated to the animal lovers in our audience, particularly to
Emily Raible who suggested the subject in the first place.
Today's poem is "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats. Poem
begins at timestamp 2:23.
"Ode to a Nightingale"
by John Keats
My heart aches,
and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as
though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some
dull opiate to the drains
One minute
past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through
envy of thy happy lot,
But being too
happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In
some melodious plot
Of beechen
green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught
of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long
age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora
and the country green,
Dance, and
Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker
full of the warm South,
Full of the
true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And
purple-stained mouth;
That I might
drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
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;
Where palsy
shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth
grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And
leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty
cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for
I will fly to thee,
Not charioted
by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the
viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the
dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with
thee! tender is the night,
And haply the
Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But
here there is no light,
Save what
from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see
what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft
incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed
darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the
seasonable month endows
The grass, the
thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White
hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And
mid-May's eldest child,
The coming
musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I
listen; and, for many a time
I have been
half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft
names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into
the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon
the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In
such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst
thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not
born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry
generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear
this passing night was heard
In ancient
days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the
self-same song that found a path
Through the
sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The
same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic
casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the
very word is like a bell
To toll me
back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy
cannot cheat so well
As she is
fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu!
thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near
meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In
the next valley-glades:
Was it a
vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?