Random Poetry!!! #2 -- John Keats -- Ode to a Nightingale

One of my favorite Romantic Poets is John Keats. An absolutely incredible man and in my personal opinion a true genius. He died at 26 due to Tuberculosis and by that time his works had already outpaced most writers that have ever existed in Western Civilization (after quitting his career as a dresser/surgeon/doctor). His personal letters are just as enthralling as his poetry and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND all of you to read up on his mysterious idea of negative capability. He didn't say much about negative capability but it's just GREAT. Here's a snippet:

what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously--I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason

...just fascinating stuff...maybe we'll do a little post on that alone (or on Keats alone) at some point...but alas not today! This quote comes from this letter by John Keats to his brothers George and Thomas on 12/21/1817.

Today we shall simply read Keats' Ode to a Nightingale...which is quite truly one of my favorite poems of all time...Keats created his own ode form with an original rhyme scheme, metrical footing, and lines for his verses. Its just wonderful b/c his FORM matches up with the MEANING of these odes and that is just INCREDIBLE to me, which all match up with many romantic notions of literature (by Romantic I mean the Romantic movement in literature---similar in music with Beethoven, etc.---and NOT romance like cheesy love relations---they are decidedly different just fyi).

Keats was HUGELY influenced by William Wordsworth and since in our last post of Random Poetry we were read Wordsworth's poem called "Tintern Abbey," I thought it would be fitting to share with you some lines from one of Keats' letters to a friend and what he had to say not only about Tintern Abbey but about Wordsworth at large (and in comparison to John Milton--the poet who wrote "Paradise Lost"--the great epic poem for the English Language--maybe we'll read that at some point too who knows. It's quite a fun read indeed!). Anyway here's the lines from Keats' letter:

the World is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and oppression - whereby This Chamber of Maiden Thought become gradually darken'd and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open - but all dark - all leading to dark passages - We see not the ballance of good and evil.  We are in a Mist - We are now in that state - We feel the "burden of the Mystery," To this point was Wordsworth come, as far as I can conceive when he wrote 'Tintern Abbey' and it seems to me that his Genius is explorative of those dark Passages.  Now if we live, and go on thinking, we too shall explore them.  He is a Genius and superior [to] us, in so far as he can, more than we, make discoveries, and shed a light in them - Here I must think Wordsworth is deeper than Milton - though I think it has depended more upon the general and gregarious advance of intellect, than individual greatness of Mind - From the Paradise Lost and the other Works of Milton, I hope it is not too presuming, even between ourselves to say, his Philosophy, human and divine, may be tolerably understood by one not much advanced in years…He [Milton] did not think into the human heart, as Wordsworth has done - Yet Milton as a Philosopher, had sure as great powers as Wordsworth - What is then to be inferr'd?  O many things - It proves there is really a grand march of intellect - , it proves that a mighty providence subdues the mightiest Minds to the service of the time being, whether it be in human Knowledge or Religion

Here's a link to the letter where I got this quote from: http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters/reynolds3May1818.html

And here's a link to a great site to get some of John Keats' Letters (not all unfortunately): http://englishhistory.net/keats/letters.html

So without further adieu...here's a copy of the poem for you to read to yourself. I am too busy right now to read it and post a video with the text so alas today is just for you! But that's good too b/c you can start to really read the poetry you see before your eyes...that is with enthusiasm, energy, passion!! As my late great professor Richard Tobias would say..."you gotta feel it in your bones!"

Well cheers to good old Tobes with this one that I have always felt deep in my bones!

Ode to a Nightingale

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,	5
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.	10
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!	15
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:	20
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 grey hairs,	25
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.	30
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,	35
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.	40
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;	45
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.	50
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 musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,	55
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.	60
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	65
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.	70
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 famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades	75
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?	80