Ode on a Grecian Urn
I.
THOU still unravish’d 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-fring’d 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 loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
II.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties 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,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
III.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
IV.
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 drest?
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.
V.
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.
Poems (published 1820)
Poem: Ode on a Grecian Urn
Extracted from: http://www.john-keats.com/gedichte/ode_on_a_grecian.htm
Author: John Keats.
Ode on Melancholy
I.
NO, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
II.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
III.
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Poems (published 1820)
Poem: Ode on Melancholy.
Author: John Keats.
Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode on
Melancholy: Analysis and Comentary.
Today we are going to coment, analyse
and compare two poems of John Keats: Ode on Melancholy and Ode on a
Grecian Urn. Both poems were published in the anthology Poems in 1820.
The first difference that we can
appreciate between both poems is the length of the poem. Where as Ode on a
Grecian Urn (we will call it from now on Grecian Urn) has five
stanzas, Ode on Melancholy (we will call it Melancholy)has three.
Although the poems has not the same length, the stanzas of both poems do: the
five stanzas of Grecian Urn have ten verses each, and the same happens
with Melancholy: each stanza has ten verses, too.
With regards to the rhyme scheme, we
can say that both poems follow a similar one: the first seven verses of each
stanzas of both poems have the same scheme: ABABCDC. However, the rhyme of the
three last verses of each stanzas change: in Grecian Urn, the last
verses of the first and the fifth stanza have a rhyme scheme DCE; the second
stanza has a CED one, and the third and fourth stanza have a CDE one, whereas Melancholy
the last verses of the first and the second stanza have the same rhyme scheme,
CDE, and change in the third stanza, DCE.
Now we are going to coment Ode on a
Grecian Urn. In the first stanza the speaker is in front of an urn and
speaks to it. He is worried because the urn is old and its pictures are disappearing because of the time
passed. He describes it as a historian that can tell a story (Sylvan historian,
who canst thus express /A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme, verses
3 and 4). Because the pictures are
depicted in the urn, he tries to imagine what they were and what they wanted to
tell(What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape /Of deities or mortals,
or of both, verses 5 and 6). He looks at one picture and imagines its story
(What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? /What mad pursuit? What
struggle to escape? , verses 8 and 9).
In the second stanza the author looks
at another picture, it is a young man playing a pipe, and states that he
unheard melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies; time doesn’t go by for them
(Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard /Are sweeter; therefore, ye
soft pipes, play on; /Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, verses
11, 12 and 13). He tells the young piper that he could never kiss his lover,
because he is frozen in time, but he must not cry, because her beauty will
never deteriorate. In the third stanza
Keats keeps on speaking about the picture of the piper. He looks at the trees
and feels happy because the songs of the piper will be for ever new, and
because the love of the young couple will be forever, not like mortal love,
which eventually disappears (All breathing human passion far above, /That
leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, /A burning forehead, and a parching
tongue.verses 28, 29 and 30). In the
fourth stanza, the author turns to another picture, a group of people going to sacrifice a heifer. He wonders where they are going (To what
green altar, O mysterious priest verse 32), and from where they have come (What
little town by river or sea shore, /Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, verses
35 and 36). He supposes that the city will be silent for those who have left,
those who are in the urn. In the fifth stanza he speaks again to the urn: it is
like the Eternity (dost tease us out of thought /As doth eternity:,
verses 44 and 45). His generation will be dead, but the urn will stay for
future generations.
In Ode to Melancholy, in the
first stanza the author tells a model reader, a sufferer, not to be in his/her sadnesss, with images
such as not to go some places, like to the
Lethe river, the river of forgetfulness in
Greek mythology (Cristina Arnau) or Make not your rosary of yew-berries, /Nor
let the beetle, nor the death-moth be, verses 5 and 6. He is using these images
to describe the melancholy, the author does not want the sufferer to feel melancholy. In the
second stanza Keats tells the speaker what to do if he/she feels melancholy (But
when the melancholy fit shall fall ,verse 11; Then glut thy sorrow on a
morning rose, /Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, ,verses 15 y 16). In
the third stanza, the author explains
the reader his orders, claiming that pleasure and pain are linked: the shrine
of melancholy is in the Temple of delight., verse 25.
Ode on a Grecian
Urn and Ode on Melancholy deal with both feelings, happiness and
sadness, but difference is that in Grecian Urn, these feelings are
caused for the vision of the ancient urn; Keats feels sadness because he will
not remain as long as the urn; it will be forever, but not the speaker, who
will die and someday nobody will remember him. On the other hand, the urn will
never eb forgotten, because everybody can find it. He feels sad for this
reason, but also happy, because it is incredible what a urn can hide, what
beautiful stories can be read in its pictures; they are depicted, but as long
as we have imagination, we will study the Urn.
Nevertheless, Melancholy, describes that feelings as a naturall,
and the way we must feel: we have to enjoy our melancholy and we feel with
melancholy our happiness because both feelings are connected.
Bibliography.
ü
JohnKeats.com
http://www.john-keats.com/gedichte/ode_on_a_grecian.htm
©JohnKeats.com
ü
Cristina Arnau. 2nd of Bachillerato’s Greek
Lessons. 2002-2003