• Home
  • Mr. E.'s Reading Lab
    • The Middle Ages >
      • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight >
        • Sir Gawain Part 1a
        • Sir Gawain Part 1b
        • Sir Gawain Part 2a
        • Sir Gawain Part 2b
        • Sir Gawain Part 3a
        • Sir Gawain Part 3b
        • Sir Gawain Part 4a
        • Sir Gawain Part 4b
      • The Canterbury Tales >
        • from The Canterbury Tales "Prologue"
        • The Prioress' Tale
        • The Wife of Bath's Tale
        • The Pardoner's Tale
    • The Renaissance >
      • Macbeth >
        • Macbeth, Act I
        • Macbeth, Act II
        • Macbeth, Act III
        • Macbeth, Act IV
        • Macbeth, Act V
      • Hamlet >
        • Hamlet, Act I
        • Hamlet, Act II
        • Hamlet, Act III
        • Hamlet, Act IV
        • Hamlet, Act V
    • Age of Reason >
      • The Lady's Dressing Room
      • A Satirical Elegy
      • A Modest Proposal
      • Essay on Man, Part 1
    • The Romantic Period >
      • Frankenstein >
        • The Letters
        • Chapters 1 - 4
        • Chapters 5 - 6
        • Chapters 7 - 10
        • Chapters 11 - 12
        • Chapters 13 - 15
        • Chapters 16 - 17
        • Chapters 18 - 20
        • Chapters 21 - 23
        • Chapter 24
      • Elegy in a Country Churchyard
      • She Walks in Beauty
      • Rime of the Ancient Mariner Parts I-IV
      • Rime of the Ancient Mariner Parts V-VII
      • Ozymandias
      • Ode to a Nightingale
      • To a Skylark
      • Westminster Bridge
      • We Are Seven
      • To Autumn
      • A Noiseless, Patient Spider
    • Victorian Period >
      • The Highwayman
      • The Darkling Thrush
      • Porphyria's Lover
      • The Forsaken Merman
      • The Lady of Shalott
      • My Last Duchess
      • The Wreck of the Hesperus
      • The Bishop Orders His Tomb
      • Goblin Market
      • Heather Ale
      • The Yarn of the Nancy Bell
      • Dover Beach
    • The Modern Age >
      • The Hollow Men
  • UIL
    • UIL MEETS CALENDAR
    • Conflict Pattern
    • Ready Writing
    • Spelling & Vocabulary
    • Literary Criticism
  • HCISD CALENDAR
  • Contact Mr. E.
  EVERETT'S ENGLISH HUB

 Ode to a nightingale
   by john keats (1819)

Picture
 
Ode to a Nightingale 


by John Keats (1795-1821)

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? 

PRE-READING VOCABULARY:

Opiate - Liquid containing the drug opium
Lethe - a river in Hades said to make one forget
Dryad - female spirits of nature said to live in trees, dying when the tree dies
melodious plot - music-filled piece of land
draught - cup
vintage - wine
Flora - plants, Greek goddess of flowers
provencial - from the country
beaker - tall cup
Hippocrene - a fountain on Mount Helicon said to give poetic inspiration when drunk
fret - worry
palsy - shaking due to old age or illness
spectre - ghost
leaden - heavy, as if full of lead
lustrous - reflecting light
Bacchus - Roman god of wine
pards - leopards
perplexes - confuses
Fays - fairies
verdurous - full of green plant life
darkling - in darkness, sightless
requiem - funeral song
sod - piece of earth (without senses)
Ruth - a Biblical figure who left her homeland to dwell among strangers
casements - windows
forlorn - lost and forgotten
fancy - imagination
plaintive - sad and mournful
anthem - song
glade - an open, grassy space in a forest
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.