"Ode to a Nightingale"
By
John Keats
Transcription, correction, editorial commentary, and markup by Students and Staff of the University of Virginia
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Ode to a Nightingale.
1.
1My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
2My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
3Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
4One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk
5'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
6But being too happy in thine happiness, —
7That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
8In some melodious plot
9Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
10Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
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2.
11O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
12Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
13Tasting of Flora and the country green,
14Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
15O for a beaker full of the warm south,
16Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
17With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
18And purple-stained mouth;
19That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
20And with thee fade away into the forest dim
3.
21Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
22What thou among the leaves hast never known,
23The weariness, the fever, and the fret
24Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
25Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
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26Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
27Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
28And leaden-eyed despairs,
29Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
30Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
4.
31Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
32Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
33But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
34Though the dull brain perplexes and retards
35Already with thee! tender is the night,
36And haply the Queen-Moon- is on her throne,
37Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
38But here there is no light,
39Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
40Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
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5.
41I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
42Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
43But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
44Wherewith the seasonable month endows
45The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
46White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
47Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
48And mid-May's eldest child,
49The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
50The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
6.
51Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
52I have been half in love with easeful Death,
53Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
54To take into the air my quiet breath;
55Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
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56To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
57While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
58In such an ecstasy!
59Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —
60To thy high requiem become a sod.
7.
61Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
62No hungry generations tread thee down;
63The voice I hear this passing night was heard
64In ancient days by emperor and clown
65Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
66Through the sad heqrt of Ruth, when, sick for home,
67She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
68The same that oft-times hath
69Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
70Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
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8.
71Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
72To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
73Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
74As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
75Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
76Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
77Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
78In the next valley-glades
79Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
80Fled is that music — Do I wake or sleep?