Thou still unravished bride of
quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our
rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild
ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those
unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes,
play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit dities of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou
kiss,
Though winning near the goal---yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not
thy bliss
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot
shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unweari-ed,
Forever piping songs forever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,
Forever panting, and forever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a
parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious
priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands dressed?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair
attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity. Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation
waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"---that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
In this poem, the author writes
about the Time, when the time goes by, a lot of things disappear, but another
thing, like Beauty, remains the same.
This poem has a main idea: the material things have a
life and a death, and after this death nothing of them remains in the world,
but some other abstract things, like beauty, are immortal.
I think that this poem is straightforward, because it is
based on the urn to make a comparison, and the urn is a very clear symbol:
inside it contains the mortal element, the thing that is dead, and this thing
can not be seen; and on the external side, we can see the immortal part, the
drawings, which decorate it; these elements are symbolizing the beauty in the
poem. It is the same that occurs in real life: human actions that are made to
affect the real world have a life and a death, and after the death they will be
forgotten; and the abstract ideas, and the actions which are made to symbolize
this ideas, will not disappear.
The author uses a serious tone in this poem because he is
writing about two important topics: the first topic is the immortality of the
elevated ideas, like Beauty, and the second aspect is the mortality of the
human actions. In my opinion this is a variant of the classic theme: “Carpe
Diem, Tempus Fugit”. This thought defends the idea that the time goes by very
quickly, so we must enjoy it the most we can. In this poem the idea is similar,
but not the same: the time goes by very quickly, so the things that are under
the time effects are not important; the important things are the abstract and
elevated ideas, like Beauty, which are immortal.
The poem is structured in groups of ten verses, each
verse has ten syllables. The first four verses of each group has the same
structure: A-B-A-B, but the other six verses have three different structures;
in the first and in the last group, the structure is: C-D-E-D-C-E; in the third
and in the fourth group, the structure is: C-D-E-C-D-E; and in the second
group, the structure is: C-D-E-C-E-D. This is the formal structure, but in the
poem there is also the thematic structure: in the first and in the fourth
groups, the author talks about the urn and the actions that are represented in
its external side; in the second and in the third groups, the author talks
about Beauty and its advantages in front of the human passions, which are
condemned to death. In the fifth group, the poet joins these two topics: the
urn and the abstract feelings.
In this poem there are two key images: the urn, this
image is explained before, but the urn also introduces other topics that have
not been mentioned, it introduces the topic of the Greek culture in the poem.
In my opinion, it is a very important point because it reinforces the main idea
of the poem. The Greek culture was an important age of the human history, and
from this culture are only conserved the art expressions, like sculptures,
books, urns... in other words, the things that were made in order to express
the beauty are also conserved. The human actions have disappeared, but the
human actions related to Beauty are conserved.
The second image is the “happy melodist”, Keats is
talking about that poets are privileged people because they have a close
relationship with the abstract and immortal parts of the universe (a very typical
romantic idea).
The first time that I read this poem I was quite lost
because this poem has not a logical order (vid supra). In the first group of
verses, the poet talks about the urn, in the second and in the third groups the
poet talks about something you do not know exactly (this is Beauty, but you do
not know this until you finish the poem); in the fourth group the poet returns
to the urn and its drawings; and in the final group the poet gives you the clue
to understand all the poem. The first time, this poem also remembered me all
the poems that I have read about the topic of the “Carpe Diem, Tempus Fugit”. I
have not read this poem before, and I have not read before in other place the
metaphor of the urn, and I think that it is a very good metaphor to express the
Time’s limitation in humans and art’s immortality.