In the first stanza of the ode Keats introduces the nightingale, who he claims to be “too happy in thine happiness,” and in response to the melody he is struck by sentiments of both pain and joy. He declares that although his heart aches he is overcome by a drowsy numbness. How can a person ache, but be numb at the same time? While this may sound ridiculous, it strikes within the reader a true sense of just how much pain Keats is experiencing at the sound of the nightingales voice. It causes him such pain that he cannot fully handle the experience of it and a sense of overwhelming numbness has taken over. Keats is describing how pleasure can be so intense that paradoxically it can both numb and cause pain. It is as if Keats knows he can never be like the nightingale, and be free from the stresses of life. Like Scott says, “The poet seeks to leave behind the weariness, the fever, and the fret of a world of mortals, who are slaves of time and subservient to pain, aging, and death,” (139) just as Keats tries to get lost in the voice of the nightingale. The nightingale symbolizes Keats ideas of true joy and an ideal he knows will be impossible to reach.

As Keats delves further into his desires to live free of pain in his joy verses pain structured reality his descriptions become more fantastical and imaginative. He uses a kind of paradox again as he describes different types of wine with which he hopes will take him away from the realities of the earth, yet each wine he describes comes from a distinctive region and each is heavily representative of the earth. He paints beautiful descriptions of what each wine reminds him of yet he wishes that he “might drink and leave the world unseen.” How can he desire such earthly beauties like: “deep delved earth, country green, warm south, and forest dims” and at the same time wish to never see these things again?

As the poem progresses to the third stanza Keats uses the nightingale's innocent and happy life to show just how corrupt the world can be. Even the effects of wine cannot pull him from his awareness of the real world; here in this stanza Keats truly realizes that he can never escape “leaden-eye despairs”. He speaks to the nightingale of his desires and his wish to “Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget what thou among the leaves hast never known.” In stanza four “the poet suddenly cries out "Away! Away! For I will fly to thee." He turns to fantasy again; he rejects wine in line two, and in line three he announces he is going to use "the viewless wings of Poesy" to join a fantasy bird" (Scott 140). This idea of relying on “poesy” to escape the world is different from the descriptions of wine in stanza two. Instead of wishing to escape through the numbing powers of wine, Keats now asserts that the only true way to experience happiness is through ones own mind. Keats seems to be saying that by using ones imagination is the key to happiness and a way to escape the harsh realities that he is facing. In opposition to the beauty of numbness that he had earlier stated, Keats now degrades those feelings of wishing to escape by saying “the dull brain perplexes and retards.” With this line Keats takes his own advice and plunges into line after line of fantasy driven descriptions as he lets his imagination run wild. It seems that at this moment he has successfully grasped the kind of true happiness felt by the nightingale, but Keats cannot escape reality for long as he remembers once again “but here there is no light.”

From here on the ode takes on a very dark tone, as Keats realizes more and more that he can never achieve true happiness. He describes his inability to see the changing of the seasons and the beauties of nature that come with them. It is as if he has seen too much of the harsh realities of life to enjoy the simple pleasures of nature. It is interesting that even though Keats says he cannot see, he is able to vividly describe the changing of the seasons. It is as if at one time, before the realities of the world had numbed him, he was able to see and now he is only describing what he remembers. How can a person who cannot see make a description as vivid as: "The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine"?

In the next stanza Keats begins to pull himself away from the nightingale and focuses more heavily on their differences. He voices his thoughts on death and how he has longed for it often. He uses the nightingale as opposition to his feelings saying that he wishes "To cease upon the midnight with no pain, while thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy!" This statement truly sets Keats apart from the nightingale as he sets himself up against it in direct opposition. He uses paradox and says that it would be "rich to die," showing the reader that for him death would be pleasurable. "Keats yearns to die, a state which he imagines as only joyful, as pain-free, and to merge with the bird's song" (Hoagwood 459). Towards the end of the stanza Keats seems to realize that death is not just a release from pain, but more of an inability to feel. The inability to feel the nightingale's ecstasy. He realizes that if he were to die, the nightingale would keep right on going with her song, it wouldn't matter, "Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain." It is interesting how Keats uses similar words to give contrasting descriptions for both the nightingale and death. He says that the nightingale "sang with full throated ease" and then describes death as "easeful".

Keats moves from his awareness of his own mortality in the preceding stanza to the perception of the bird's immortality" (Hoagwood 461). While it is obvious that the bird will someday die, it is the symbol of ideal and unmixed joy that Keats believes will never die. "The poet contrasts the bird's immortality, and continuing joyful song, with the condition of human beings, "hungry generations"" (Scott 441). Keats seems to envy the bird's naive outlook on its life. Unlike human beings, who know that they will die, the bird has no understanding of death. Stanza seven begins in the present tense, but Keats goes on to describe the nightingale's singing in the past. This makes the nightingale seem more mythological and symbolic as it represents the feeling of joy and how it has always been and always will be. Different realities are described as Keats looks at the nightingale in the past. All three realities describe situations where pain and feelings of being forlorn are present. "These descriptions hint at the pain the poet recognized in the beginning of the poem and is trying to escape" (Scott 442).

In the last stanza Keats fully awakens from his daydream as the haunting realities of his life make it impossible for him to imagine anymore. He is brought back to reality by the harsh bell of realization that he is forlorn. In his realization he becomes angry with the nightingale calling it a "fancy elf". He knows that the bird has tricked him into believing in a joy filled reality that can never be. Once Keats realizes this the bird ceases to be a symbol and returns to a normal bird as Keats returns to his forlorn reality. The nightingale's song becomes a "plaintive anthem" instead of a joyous melody because Keats can now see through it and knows that what the bird sings of can never be true. He describes the nightingale's voice as being "buried deep" as if to suggest that what it represented is now dead and buried because he can no longer escape with it to a joy filled world. "With the last two lines, the poet wonders whether he has had a true insight or experienced a vision or whether he has been daydreaming" (Hoagwood 461). He seems to be questioning the realness of the experience because he knows that what he experienced is impossible. He says "Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?"

In the end the reader is left with a sense that Keats really didn't gain any pleasure from listening to the nightingale sing. All of the beauties that it brought only reminded him of a life he could never have. For every joyous thought that the nightingale roused in him, there was an opposing thought of misery that came with it. He couldn't truly enjoy the nightingale's melody because he realized that the carefree life that it lead was what he truly wanted but knew he could never have. In the conclusion of the poem Keats comes to accept that he can never experience the true joy of the nightingale and that his dream can never come true.

"Ode to a Nightingale" was the second of the five great odes of 1819 and its themes are reflected in its twin ode, "Ode on a Grecian Urn." One of his deeper poems, the relentless song of the Nightingale pierces Keats' sorrow at the loss of his brother, how the inevitability of death and decay blemish the beauty and happier side of nature and life. As in this poem, Keats tries to escape his pain through his poetry, "on the viewless wings of poesy" ('Ode to a Nightingale'). This poem captures something many of us will have felt at some time, the concept of not wanting a perfect moment to end, "now more than ever it seems rich to die...to cease upon the midnight with no pain" ('Ode to a Nightingale'). Keats comes back to reality as the bird vanishes up the valley, taking it's intoxicating song with it.

It almost seems as if Keats is trying to rationalize (beautifully) his cheated life. He feels as though poetry has in a way fulfilled his life and can make death more bearable. The same thoughts Keats deals with can be compared to the thoughts of the genius Hamlet, who was unsure of when it was right to die. The poem's ending is most fitting. He's confronted with the choice to “wake or sleep” ('Ode to a Nightingale'), a phrase which shows he's reluctant to continue with his daily life after hearing the most beautiful sound he could ever hear. This concludes his rationalization as he can now accept his death with peace.

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" was the third of the five great odes of 1819. During Keats' time it was not unusual to make a work of art, painting or sculpture a subject of a poem. Taken literally, the poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn" is a poem about a vase, but Keats has switched the traditional understanding of physical, tangible objects and transformed them into metaphors for abstract concepts, such as truth and time. An urn is primarily used to preserve the ashes of the dead. The theme of the Ode has to do with the relationship between imagination and actuality, and the supremacy and immortality of a work of art if compared to our ordinary life. With the masterful use of figurative language, Keats has created a melodic poem which serves the purpose he gives it.

Keats wrote the scenes about the musician and the passionate youth to express their eternal value. We can see that from the sentence “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter” ('Ode on a Grecian Urn'). Since the unheard music will last forever and is never affected by time, it is worth more than presently heard music. Also, the passionate youth will always keep his passion and admiration to the girl. Keats used those wonderful images to correspond to the last stanza “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” ('Ode on a Grecian Urn'). It is easy to understand now why he admired the urn for its eternal value. Also, Since Keats' brother died of tuberculosis, there is the possibility of Keats' own imminent death to the same disease, “Who are these coming to the sacrifice” ('Ode on a Grecian Urn')? That is why the poems move on from the endless love between the young couple to the ritual part.

Keats' own imminent death caused him to create a complex rationalization to secure his place in life through his own physical and intellectual art. Evan Boland writes that Keats “read voraciously, to dream of greatness, and even to imagine a place for himself in the fast-moving literature of the time” (Boland 95). Keats had always dreamed of placing himself in the eternal memories of literary greatness. His dreams must have only been intensified when he learned of own imminent death. Humble beginnings as a “son of a lively stable keeper” (Boland 95) must also have inspired him to achieve greatness. Keats was an extraordinary man that was able, in a way, to overcome death for an eternal moment and secure his memories using his own artistic genius.