Lines 1-20, Keats' Ode to a Nightingale

Beata Beatrix, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains ¹⁰

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,¹⁰

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains ¹⁰

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk ¹⁰

'Tis not through envy of they happy lot, ¹⁰

 but being to happy in thy happiness ¹¹

That thou, light wingèd dryad of the trees, ¹⁰

In some melodious plot ⁷

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, ¹⁰

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.¹⁰

What does the heart ache for? Is it a literal pain? Melancholy? Love? The poet seems to find comfort in the song of the nightingale, referred to as the light wingèd dryad which sings of summer. Is it for warmth and light?

While it's the eventual paralysis of the lungs that makes hemlock fatal, let's use the idea that it's the heart as implied by Plato. It could mean love is fatal, like an opiate it makes you forgetful and listless. This state of oblivion is reinforced with the mention of the Lethe.

Or just being happy, basking in the sound of the nightingale, makes you forget your worries, creating a momentary paradise.

Green Summer, by Edward Burne-Jones

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been¹⁰

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,¹⁰

Tasting of Flora and the country-green,¹⁰

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!¹⁰

O for a beaker full of the warm South!¹⁰

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,¹⁰

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,¹⁰

And purple-stainèd mouth;⁵

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,¹⁰

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:¹²

Sunburnt mirth and the South bring back the feeling of summer and contrast with the imagery deep-delved earth and numberless shadows creates.

I don't think it's the actual wine the poet craves but what he associates it with. Although the way the it's described is very sensuous. The hippocrene is blushful because it's red wine and the purple-stainèd mouth almost makes you taste it on your lips.

It's a rich drink that comes from grapes but can be intoxicating, I don't like the way it's implied as an escape but poetry isn't literal, so what could it be symbolizing? What else is rich and intoxicating? Perhaps love? or inspiration? passion?

Please share your thoughts!