Ode to a Nightingale

The poem fuses "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" to adequately express the double life of human experience. The poem’s movement through the different modes is achieved through a loose stylistic perfection; a dream-like experience of intoxication done with intense canto regularity. Ode to a Nightingale not only waxes and wanes between these realms, it vibrates deeply with a true look at what Keats in his life has endured, and foreshadows the death to come. …

…adieu! speaking of it as a deceiving elf. Perhaps he feels he was deceived by the song into believing it was one of happiness yet now he realizes the truth, that it is really a plaintive anthem. As the nightingale flies away past the near meadows, over the still stream….[and becomes] buried deep in the next valley-glades, he wonders if this was just a vision, or a waking dream….do I wake or sleep?