Lines 61-80, Keats' Ode to a Nightingale

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!10
No hungry generations tread thee down;10
The voice I hear this passing night was heard10
In ancient days by emperor and clown:10
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path10
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,10
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;10
The same that oft-times hath6
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam11
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.11

The nightingale will die but it's music will live on through it's predecessors; in an artistic sense it's immortal. While an artist or great human mind arguably lives on through what they leave behind once they die they can't continue to create here on earth.

Reader Crowned with Flowers, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Hungry generations could stands for youth, their ideas and ways become what shape the world as the generation of their parents begins to let them take the reins and maybe even tread on what had been their changes. But there's comfort in the constancy of the nightingale's song and musing upon it's history.

In the Peristyle, by John William Waterhouse
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell10
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!10
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well10
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.10
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades10
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,10
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep10
In the next valley-glades:6
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?10
Fled is that music: -do I wake or sleep?10

The poet is left feeling dazed, the spell has broken and the music is fading, perhaps as dawn comes.

Comments

Another instance of the fantasy Keats. I don't know whether magic casements and faery lands allude to some mythical universe (perhaps he was thinking of Ancient Greece and its myths?) or just another way to say foreign. The clown is a strange person to mention, though of course it could be a rhyme he was looking for. But it makes me think of a jester in mediaeval times, which shows you the timelessness of the nightingale. The hungry generations could be an allusion to the poverty that comes with industrialisation. Empires fade, those in poverty die, which is pathetic compared to the nightingale.

I think the last lines mean, he's been thinking of the bird, and now it brings him back to himself. Keats' friend said afterwards, after Keats had heard the song he wasn't sure if he really had heard it or whether it was the figment of his imagination. Which is why he says "Was it a vision or a waking dream?" as the music dies out, either from his vicinity or his imagination. But if it's the latter it's a return to reality.

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