🌙 ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE – JOHN KEATS
📅 Written
May 1819, during Keats’s “Great Odes” period.
📖 First Published
July 1819 in Annals of the Fine Arts magazine.
Later included in Keats’s 1820 volume Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.
✍️ Form & Structure
Type: Ode.
Stanzas: 8 stanzas.
Lines: 10 lines per stanza.
Meter: Iambic pentameter.
Rhyme scheme: ABABCDECDE (slight variations sometimes).
🎠Tone
Melancholic, reflective, and lyrical.
Shifts between sorrow (human suffering) and enchantment (the bird’s immortal song).
🌿 Themes
1. Transience of human life – pain, suffering, aging, death.
2. Immortality of art and beauty – represented by the bird’s song.
3. Desire for escape – through wine, imagination, or death.
4. Imagination vs. Reality – the poet’s mind lifts him towards beauty but always falls back to harsh reality.
5. Nature and Art – the nightingale as a timeless symbol of inspiration.
🎨 Imagery & Style
Rich in sensuous imagery (sight, sound, taste, smell, touch).
Use of classical references (Dryad, Hippocrene, Ruth).
Contrasts between darkness/light, mortality/immortality, pain/pleasure.
🕊️ Symbolism
Nightingale: Eternal beauty, timeless art, poetic inspiration.
Wine: Escape through pleasure.
Death: A possible release from suffering.
Imagination: A fleeting bridge between mortal life and immortal beauty.
🎯 Line by Line Explanation (with word meanings in brackets)
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STANZA 1
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
→ The poet feels deep heartache and numbness (loss of sensation), like he had drunk hemlock (deadly poison).
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
→ As though he had taken an opiate (drug, like opium) and sunk towards Lethe (river of forgetfulness in Greek mythology).
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
→ He is not jealous of the bird’s joy; he is overwhelmed by sharing in its happiness.
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
→ The nightingale is compared to a Dryad (tree spirit), sitting in a shady spot of beech trees, singing joyfully and effortlessly of summer.
👉 Meaning: The poet feels drugged with joy at hearing the nightingale’s song, which is free and blissful.
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STANZA 2
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
→ He longs for vintage (aged wine), cooled in deep-delved (deep-dug) cellars.
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
→ Wine that tastes of Flora (goddess of flowers), countryside life, Provençal (southern France) songs, and rustic mirth (happiness).
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
→ A beaker (cup) of southern wine, or Hippocrene (mythical fountain that inspires poetry).
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
→ Wine with bubbling froth (beaded bubbles) sparkling at the brim, staining lips purple.
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
→ He wishes to drink and escape into the nightingale’s dark forest world.
👉 Meaning: He desires wine to forget human troubles and join the bird in its carefree existence.
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STANZA 3
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
→ He wants to disappear and forget life’s pains which the bird has never experienced.
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
→ Human life is full of weariness (tiredness), fever (illness), and fret (worry), with endless suffering.
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
→ Old people suffer palsy (trembling illness), youth becomes spectre-thin (ghost-like) and dies.
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
→ Mere thinking brings sorrow and leaden-eyed (dull, heavy-eyed) despair.
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
→ Beauty fades quickly; even Love (pine = long for) does not last beyond tomorrow.
👉 Meaning: Unlike the bird, human life is full of sickness, aging, despair, and fleeting joys.
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STANZA 4
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
→ He will escape to the bird, not with Bacchus (god of wine) and pards (leopards pulling his chariot).
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
→ He will use poetry (Poesy) as his wings, though the mind often slows (retards) imagination.
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
→ In imagination, he is already with the bird. It is night, the moon (Queen-Moon) is on her throne, surrounded by stars (Fays = fairies).
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
→ Except for moonlight filtering through verdurous glooms (green shades) and mossy (damp) paths, the forest is dark.
👉 Meaning: Imagination (poetry) is his true escape, not wine.
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STANZA 5
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
→ It is too dark to see the flowers or blossoms.
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
→ In fragrant (embalmed) darkness, he guesses the flowers the season has brought to grass, bushes, and trees.
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
→ He imagines hawthorn, eglantine (wild rose), violets fading, and the musk-rose with dewy fragrance, surrounded by buzzing (murmurous) flies on summer evenings.
👉 Meaning: Though blinded by darkness, imagination supplies him with rich scents and sounds.
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STANZA 6
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
→ In the dark (darkling), he listens, recalling how often he has longed for easeful Death (peaceful death).
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
→ In his poetry, he has invited death gently to take his life.
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
→ Now, it seems most pleasant to die painlessly at midnight.
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
→ To die while listening to the nightingale’s ecstatic song would be bliss.
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
→ The bird would continue singing, but he would be buried (sod = soil), unable to hear.
👉 Meaning: Death seems sweet in the presence of eternal beauty, yet highlights man’s mortality.
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STANZA 7
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tramp thee down;
→ The nightingale is called immortal, because its song outlives human generations.
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
→ Its song has been heard by both emperors (the mighty) and clowns (common folk).
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
→ The same song comforted Ruth (Biblical figure), who wept homesick in a foreign land (alien corn = strange fields).
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
→ The same music has enchanted casements (windows) overlooking perilous seas (dangerous oceans) in mythical (faery) lonely (forlorn) lands.
👉 Meaning: The nightingale’s song is universal, eternal, and heard across time, class, and place.
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STANZA 8
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
→ The word forlorn (lonely, sad) snaps him back to reality, like a tolling funeral bell.
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
→ Adieu (farewell)! Imagination (fancy) cannot fully deceive him for long; it is a deceiving elf (illusion).
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
→ The bird’s plaintive anthem (melancholy song) fades into distance — over meadows, streams, and valleys.
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
→ He is left in doubt: was his experience real or only a dream?
👉 Meaning: The song fades, leaving him confused between dream and reality — a symbol of the fleeting nature of joy.
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✨ Overall Summary
Keats contrasts the nightingale’s timeless, joyous song with the pain and mortality of human life. He longs to escape suffering through wine, poetry, and imagination. Though he dreams of joining the bird’s world, reality soon pulls him back. The poem ends with uncertainty — the line between imagination and reality blurs.
Ode to a Nightingale – 66 One-Liner Q&A with Short Explanations
📅 Facts about Poem (10 Qs)
1. Q: When was Ode to a Nightingale written?
A: May 1819.
➝ Keats’s most creative year.
2. Q: Where was Ode to a Nightingale composed?
A: Hampstead, in Charles Brown’s garden.
➝ Inspired by a real nightingale there.
3. Q: In which magazine was it first published?
A: Annals of the Fine Arts (1819).
➝ Its first appearance in print.
4. Q: In which poetry collection was it included later?
A: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820).
➝ Keats’s last volume.
5. Q: Who is the poet of Ode to a Nightingale?
A: John Keats.
➝ One of the great Romantic poets.
6. Q: How many stanzas does the poem have?
A: 8 stanzas.
➝ Each stanza has 10 lines.
7. Q: What is the rhyme scheme of the ode?
A: ABABCDECDE.
➝ Keats’s typical ode pattern.
8. Q: Which movement does the poem belong to?
A: Romanticism.
➝ Focus on imagination, nature, emotions.
9. Q: What kind of poem is it?
A: Ode (lyric poem).
➝ Meditative, reflective in tone.
10. Q: Which bird inspires the ode?
A: Nightingale.
➝ Symbol of immortal beauty.
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🎠Themes & Ideas (15 Qs)
11. Q: What main theme runs through the poem?
A: Mortality vs. Immortality.
➝ Human life is short, bird’s song is eternal.
12. Q: Which human weakness does Keats emphasize?
A: Transience of life.
➝ Death, pain, and aging.
13. Q: What does the bird symbolize?
A: Eternal art and beauty.
➝ Its song outlives generations.
14. Q: What does Keats wish for in stanza 2?
A: Wine.
➝ To escape into the bird’s world.
15. Q: What second escape does Keats imagine?
A: Flight of imagination.
➝ Better than wine, through poetry.
16. Q: What third escape does Keats contemplate?
A: Death.
➝ He thinks of dying while listening to the song.
17. Q: Why does Keats envy the nightingale?
A: Its song is timeless.
➝ Unlike human suffering.
18. Q: What does Keats call the bird in stanza 7?
A: “Immortal Bird.”
➝ Its voice has existed across ages.
19. Q: How does Keats see human joy?
A: Fleeting.
➝ Happiness quickly turns to sorrow.
20. Q: What does imagination do for Keats?
A: Lifts him into beauty.
➝ But cannot fully overcome reality.
21. Q: Why does Keats call life full of “weariness”?
A: Pain, sickness, despair.
➝ Harsh human condition.
22. Q: What is contrasted with life’s suffering?
A: Bird’s joyous song.
➝ Eternal and free.
23. Q: Why does Keats want to “fade away”?
A: To escape pain of the world.
➝ Bird’s music draws him.
24. Q: Does Keats actually join the bird?
A: No.
➝ Reality pulls him back.
25. Q: What final feeling closes the ode?
A: Doubt (“Was it a vision or a waking dream?”).
➝ Uncertainty between dream and reality.
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🌿 Imagery & Symbols (15 Qs)
26. Q: What kind of imagery dominates stanza 1?
A: Physical pain (“drowsy numbness,” “hemlock”).
➝ Shows poet’s suffering.
27. Q: What does “hemlock” symbolize?
A: Poison, death.
➝ Shows deep melancholy.
28. Q: What does “Lethe” symbolize?
A: Forgetfulness.
➝ River of forgetfulness in Greek myth.
29. Q: What is “Dryad of the trees”?
A: Tree spirit (Nightingale).
➝ Classical reference.
30. Q: Why does Keats want “a draught of vintage”?
A: To escape into bird’s world.
➝ Wine as symbol of joy.
31. Q: What is “Flora and the country green”?
A: Goddess of flowers.
➝ Classical allusion.
32. Q: What is “Hippocrene”?
A: Fountain of poetic inspiration.
➝ Greek myth reference.
33. Q: What is “verdurous glooms”?
A: Green shade of nature.
➝ Rich imagery.
34. Q: What is “embalmed darkness”?
A: Fragrant night air.
➝ Sensory description.
35. Q: What does the word “easeful Death” mean?
A: Peaceful death.
➝ Poet longs for release.
36. Q: Who is “Ruth” in stanza 7?
A: Biblical figure.
➝ Symbol of sorrow and exile.
37. Q: What is “alien corn”?
A: Foreign land Ruth wept in.
➝ Loneliness theme.
38. Q: What does the “faery lands forlorn” symbolize?
A: World of imagination.
➝ Enchanted but unreal.
39. Q: What does “forlorn” mark in stanza 8?
A: Shift back to reality.
➝ Vision broken.
40. Q: Why is the bird called “immortal”?
A: Its song is eternal.
➝ Passed through generations.
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🎨 About Style & Structure (15 Qs)
41. Q: What type of ode is it?
A: Horatian Ode.
➝ Meditative, personal.
42. Q: What meter dominates the poem?
A: Iambic pentameter.
➝ Rhythmic, musical flow.
43. Q: Which stanza structure does Keats use?
A: 10-line stanzas.
➝ ABABCDECDE rhyme.
44. Q: How many lines are there in total?
A: 80 lines.
➝ 8 stanzas × 10 lines.
45. Q: What is the main poetic device throughout?
A: Imagery.
➝ Especially sensuous imagery.
46. Q: Which senses are appealed to in stanza 5?
A: Smell and sound.
➝ “White hawthorn,” “pastoral eglantine.”
47. Q: Which poetic device is used in “viewless wings of Poesy”?
A: Metaphor.
➝ Poetry compared to wings.
48. Q: What does Keats use to show contrast between worlds?
A: Juxtaposition.
➝ Life’s pain vs. bird’s joy.
49. Q: What is the tone in the opening stanza?
A: Sad, heavy.
➝ Poet feels numb.
50. Q: What is the tone in stanza 2–3?
A: Yearning/escape.
➝ Desire to fly away.
51. Q: What is the tone in stanza 6?
A: Calm acceptance of death.
➝ “Easeful Death.”
52. Q: What is the tone in stanza 7?
A: Reverence for bird’s immortality.
➝ Deep admiration.
53. Q: What is the tone in final stanza?
A: Doubt/confusion.
➝ Blurred dream vs. reality.
54. Q: What sound device is strong in the poem?
A: Alliteration.
➝ e.g., “selfsame song.”
55. Q: Which figure of speech is “light-winged Dryad”?
A: Personification.
➝ Bird as mythic spirit.
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📚 Background & Context (15 Qs)
56. Q: Who were Keats’s contemporaries in Romantic poetry?
A: Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley.
➝ Major second-generation Romantics.
57. Q: What other great odes did Keats write in 1819?
A: Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode on Melancholy, Ode to Psyche, To Autumn.
➝ His famous “odes sequence.”
58. Q: Why was Keats often melancholic?
A: His illness (tuberculosis) and brother’s death.
➝ Personal suffering shaped poems.
59. Q: Which medical background influenced Keats?
A: He trained as a surgeon.
➝ Familiar with pain and death.
60. Q: What influenced Keats’s rich imagery?
A: Classical mythology & nature.
➝ Strong Romantic traits.
61. Q: Did Keats hear an actual nightingale?
A: Yes.
➝ Inspired by bird in Hampstead.
62. Q: Which country was Keats from?
A: England.
➝ Born in London, 1795.
63. Q: How old was Keats when he wrote this ode?
A: 23 years old.
➝ Very young.
64. Q: What illness did Keats suffer from?
A: Tuberculosis.
➝ Died at 25.
65. Q: What is Keats’s poetic philosophy?
A: “Negative capability.”
➝ Living with uncertainty, mystery.
66. Q: What Romantic value is seen in the ode?
A: Intense emotions + imagination.
➝ Key Romantic feature.
STANZA 1 Questions (Lines 1–10)
1. Q: What does the nightingale sing in?
A: Full-throated ease → (Bird sings naturally, effortlessly).
2. Q: What does the poet feel at the start?
A: A drowsy numbness → (a sleepy, drug-like state).
3. Q: To what does Keats compare his numbness?
A: Drinking hemlock → (poison that causes unconsciousness).
4. Q: What other comparison does he make for numbness?
A: An opiate drain’d → (drug that dulls senses).
5. Q: Why is the poet not envious of the bird?
A: He feels happy in its happiness.
6. Q: What emotion does the bird’s song stir in him?
A: Excess of happiness → (so much joy that it hurts).
7. Q: What season is described in stanza 1?
A: Summer.
8. Q: What trees are mentioned in stanza 1?
A: Beech trees.
9. Q: Where does the nightingale sing?
A: In the melodious plot of beechen green.
10. Q: How does the bird sing?
A: With full-throated ease.
11. Q: Why does the poet’s heart ache?
A: Because of excessive joy mixed with pain.
12. Q: What natural effect does the bird create?
A: Sweet song fills the summer.
13. Q: What makes the poet feel drugged?
A: Listening to the bird’s song.
14. Q: What is ‘hemlock’?
A: A poisonous plant.
15. Q: What does opiate mean?
A: A drug inducing sleep or numbness.
16. Q: Does the poet want to die in stanza 1?
A: No, he feels overwhelmed, not suicidal.
17. Q: What is the mood of stanza 1?
A: Mixed joy and pain (melancholy happiness).
18. Q: What sound dominates the stanza?
A: The bird’s melodious singing.
19. Q: What does the poet’s “drowsy numbness” reflect?
A: His deep emotional reaction.
20. Q: Is the poet jealous of the bird?
A: No, he shares in its joy.
STANZA 2 (Lines 11–20)
1. Q: What does the poet wish for in stanza 2?
A: A draught of vintage (wine).
2. Q: From where should the wine be cooled?
A: Deep-delved earth.
3. Q: What taste should the vintage carry?
A: Flora (flowers) and country green.
4. Q: What flowers are mentioned?
A: White hawthorn, pastoral eglantine.
5. Q: What is “Provençal song”?
A: Folk song from Provence (France).
6. Q: What does “sunburnt mirth” signify?
A: Joy of the summer countryside.
7. Q: What quality of wine does he desire?
A: Beaded bubbles winking at the brim.
8. Q: What is “purple-stained mouth”?
A: Mouth stained by red wine.
9. Q: Why does he wish for wine?
A: To fade away with the bird into forest.
10. Q: What does he want to escape from?
A: Weariness and fever of life.
11. Q: What type of mirth does the wine represent?
A: Rustic, simple happiness.
12. Q: What does “beaded bubbles” suggest?
A: Sparkling effervescence of wine.
13. Q: What kind of escape is suggested?
A: Escape from human suffering.
14. Q: Does he want ordinary drink?
A: No, imaginative, natural vintage.
15. Q: Which season dominates the imagery here?
A: Summer.
16. Q: What literary device is “sunburnt mirth”?
A: Personification.
17. Q: What does “country green” imply?
A: Fresh countryside life.
18. Q: What does wine symbolize?
A: Escape and inspiration.
19. Q: What does the brim imagery reflect?
A: Overflowing joy.
20. Q: What emotion is expressed here?
A: Longing to dissolve into bird’s world.
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STANZA 3 (Lines 21–30)
1. Q: What does the poet want to fade away from?
A: The world of weariness.
2. Q: What sufferings of the world are mentioned?
A: Weariness, fever, fret.
3. Q: What is consumed by palsy?
A: Youth (trembling hands).
4. Q: What ailment wastes away youth?
A: Consumption (disease).
5. Q: What do youth and beauty do?
A: Fade and die.
6. Q: What does the poet escape from?
A: Hungry generations.
7. Q: What sound does the poet not wish to hear?
A: The moans of the sick.
8. Q: What does the word “spectre” mean here?
A: Ghost of suffering men.
9. Q: What do aged people become?
A: Pale, thin, and weak.
10. Q: Why does he seek the nightingale?
A: To escape life’s miseries.
11. Q: What truth does he state about beauty?
A: Beauty cannot remain forever.
12. Q: What truth does he state about love?
A: Love cannot last.
13. Q: What kind of world does stanza 3 show?
A: Harsh, painful, full of decay.
14. Q: What literary device is “palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs”?
A: Personification.
15. Q: What does “hungry generations” mean?
A: Passing of human lives endlessly.
16. Q: Why does he find joy in the bird?
A: Bird is free from pain and decay.
17. Q: What tone dominates stanza 3?
A: Pessimism.
18. Q: What is contrasted with bird’s world?
A: Human suffering.
19. Q: What is the imagery of disease?
A: Consumption wasting away youth.
20. Q: Why does poet want oblivion?
A: To escape reality.
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STANZA 4 (Lines 31–40)
1. Q: What does the poet want to fly with?
A: The nightingale.
2. Q: By what means does he want to fly?
A: Not by Bacchus (wine), but by imagination.
3. Q: Who is Bacchus?
A: Roman god of wine.
4. Q: What guides him instead of Bacchus?
A: The viewless wings of Poesy.
5. Q: What is “viewless wings”?
A: Invisible wings of imagination.
6. Q: Where is the bird singing?
A: In the forest.
7. Q: What type of forest is it?
A: Dark, with moonlight dimmed.
8. Q: What is the queen moon surrounded by?
A: Starry fays (fairies/stars).
9. Q: Is the poet physically with the bird?
A: No, only mentally.
10. Q: What mood dominates stanza 4?
A: Longing for imaginative escape.
11. Q: Why can’t Bacchus help him?
A: Wine gives temporary escape.
12. Q: What can truly take him away?
A: Poetic imagination.
13. Q: What does “shadowy darkness” symbolize?
A: Mystery of bird’s world.
14. Q: What surrounds the bird’s bower?
A: Dark trees, nature’s quiet.
15. Q: What does he say about his senses?
A: They become dull in darkness.
16. Q: What is the role of moonlight?
A: Dimly lights the forest.
17. Q: Why does the poet call stars “fays”?
A: Imagined as fairies.
18. Q: What is contrasted: Bacchus vs. Poesy?
A: Material vs. imagination.
19. Q: What emotion dominates?
A: Desire for unity with bird.
20. Q: What is the central idea?
A: Imagination provides true escape.
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STANZA 5 (Lines 41–50)
1. Q: Where is the poet now?
A: In darkness with the bird.
2. Q: What sense guides him?
A: Smell (fragrance of flowers).
3. Q: What flowers are mentioned?
A: White hawthorn, pastoral eglantine, violets.
4. Q: Which month is described?
A: Mid-May.
5. Q: What is the season?
A: Summer.
6. Q: What flowers are fast fading?
A: Violets.
7. Q: Which flower blooms till midnight?
A: Musk-rose.
8. Q: What insects are with musk-rose?
A: Murmurous flies.
9. Q: Why can’t he see the flowers?
A: Darkness hides them.
10. Q: How does he sense them?
A: By fragrance.
11. Q: What device is “murmurous haunt of flies”?
A: Onomatopoeia.
12. Q: Why is imagination stronger in dark?
A: Senses other than sight awaken.
13. Q: What natural setting is shown?
A: Garden at midnight.
14. Q: What literary device is “fast-fading violets”?
A: Imagery of transience.
15. Q: Why is May chosen?
A: Blooming season.
16. Q: What dominates stanza 5?
A: Sensual imagery (smell, sound).
17. Q: Which insect is associated with roses?
A: Flies.
18. Q: What contrasts here?
A: Darkness vs. fragrance.
19. Q: What flowers signify joy and decay?
A: Fresh blossoms vs. fading violets.
20. Q: What is the overall tone?
A: Romantic imagination.
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STANZA 6 (Lines 51–60)
1. Q: What does the poet talk of here?
A: Death.
2. Q: What would be rich to die listening to?
A: The nightingale’s song.
3. Q: How long has the bird sung?
A: For many generations.
4. Q: How would death be here?
A: Peaceful, in harmony with song.
5. Q: What word is repeated for death?
A: “Easeful death.”
6. Q: What would happen if he died now?
A: He would not hear bird’s song.
7. Q: What does the bird’s song seem?
A: Immortal.
8. Q: What contrast does stanza 6 show?
A: Poet’s mortality vs. bird’s immortality.
9. Q: How does the poet describe the bird’s song?
A: As pouring forth its soul.
10. Q: What is the poet’s view on life?
A: Full of suffering, better to die.
11. Q: What makes death attractive?
A: Escape from sorrow.
12. Q: What literary device is “easeful death”?
A: Epithet.
13. Q: What would the bird continue after his death?
A: Singing.
14. Q: What emotion dominates stanza 6?
A: Yearning for death.
15. Q: What is the paradox here?
A: Death gives life-like joy in song.
16. Q: How does Keats present death?
A: Not fearful, but calm.
17. Q: What is eternal in stanza 6?
A: Bird’s song.
18. Q: What is temporary?
A: Poet’s life.
19. Q: What dominates stanza 6?
A: Mortality vs. immortality.
20. Q: What is the central idea?
A: Death as a release.
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STANZA 7 (Lines 61–70)
1. Q: What does Keats say about the nightingale?
A: Not born for death.
2. Q: Why is the bird immortal?
A: Its song lives on across ages.
3. Q: Who listened to the same song long ago?
A: Ancient kings and clowns.
4. Q: Who else heard the song?
A: Biblical Ruth.
5. Q: What was Ruth doing when she heard?
A: Gleaning in alien corn.
6. Q: What did the bird’s song provide Ruth?
A: Comfort in sorrow.
7. Q: What “magic casements” are mentioned?
A: Windows of fairy palaces.
8. Q: Where do these casements open?
A: On perilous seas in fairylands.
9. Q: What does “immortal bird” mean?
A: Its song continues forever.
10. Q: Why is the bird’s song timeless?
A: Passed down through generations.
11. Q: What does Ruth’s story symbolize?
A: Loneliness and exile.
12. Q: What literary device is “immortal Bird”?
A: Metaphor.
13. Q: What contrasts with the poet’s mortality?
A: Bird’s undying song.
14. Q: What emotion dominates stanza 7?
A: Awe at bird’s permanence.
15. Q: Who else enjoys bird’s song?
A: Past, present, future humanity.
16. Q: What is “alien corn”?
A: Foreign land’s harvest.
17. Q: What tone shift occurs here?
A: From personal sorrow to universal reflection.
18. Q: What is “perilous seas”?
A: Unknown dangers, mystery.
19. Q: What does the bird symbolize?
A: Eternal art/poetry.
20. Q: What is the central theme?
A: Immortality of song.
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STANZA 8 (Lines 71–80)
1. Q: What word recalls the poet back?
A: “Forlorn.”
2. Q: What happens when “forlorn” is uttered?
A: Spell of imagination breaks.
3. Q: Where is the poet now?
A: Back to reality.
4. Q: What “bell tolls” him back?
A: The word “forlorn.”
5. Q: What does he call the song of the bird?
A: A plaintive anthem.
6. Q: Where is the bird now?
A: Flying away.
7. Q: How does the song recede?
A: Fades past meadows and streams.
8. Q: What happens to the poet’s vision?
A: Loses imaginative flight.
9. Q: What is the mood at the end?
A: Melancholy, confusion.
10. Q: What question does he ask?
A: Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
11. Q: What does he doubt?
A: Reality of his imaginative journey.
12. Q: What literary device is “plaintive anthem”?
A: Oxymoron (sad yet holy song).
13. Q: What does “toll” suggest?
A: Funeral bell → death of imagination.
14. Q: How does the song vanish?
A: Melodiously fading away.
15. Q: What remains with poet after bird’s flight?
A: Sense of loss.
16. Q: What does the ending symbolize?
A: Transience of imagination.
17. Q: What contrast is shown again?
A: Reality vs. imagination.
18. Q: What emotion dominates stanza 8?
A: Sorrowful return to reality.
19. Q: What happens to the “immortal bird” in reality?
A: Only its song remains.
20. Q: What is the final question of the poem?
A: Vision or waking dream?
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GREAT EXPLANATION 😀 THANK YOU SO MUCH ♥️
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