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OdeRomantic · 18194 min · 2 passagesDemanding

Ode to a Nightingale

John Keats →

The ode opens as a kind of overdose and ends with the word 'forlorn'. Track how the bird's song moves from the garden, into the past, and back again.

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Stanza 1
Simile

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:

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Plain English

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness dulls my senses, as if I had drunk poison, or drained some dull opiate a minute ago and was sinking toward the river of forgetfulness.

Stanza 7
Apostrophe

Thou wast not born for death, Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down;

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Plain English

You were not born to die, immortal bird. No hungry generations of people have trampled you down.

That's the whole thing.

Read it again slowly — it gets better the second time.

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