Nature has always been a muse for the poets. For some of them it has been only an excuse to set the topic to which they really want to make us to listen to. others simply introduce us in Nature to know her.

An example of how the poets use Nature to enter topics as death, love, etc, is John Keats' poem: "Ode to a Nightingale", that was published in 1818 in the book titled: "The Eve of St. Agnes". (1)

In this poem, Keats uses nature as source of inspiration, and he also helps, the readers, to be able to imagine the space where the poet is in each moment of the narration.

The commentary of this poem will be realized in the following way: From a topic exposed in the poem, i will try to describe how nature adapts to this theme and gives the characteristics of the spatial frame to the corresponding topic.

The topics that appear in this poem are: death, freedom and poetry.

Death

To speak about death, John Keats introduces us in the Leteo (first stanza), the river of oblivion, but also he talks to us about reincarnation, he dies to turn into a nightingale that could enjoy the most beautiful corners and also he could sing without one who prevents him.

He speaks about death when, in the second stanza he says: nature, used as the poison that will take him to death, to drink the wine impregnated with flavors proceeding from the whole world, and to take advantage of the benefits that Mother Earth gives, though it is the first and last drink that he tastes from Nature.

Death is the term that appears in the sixth stanza, where he talks about his visits to the Lady of the scythe and how Keats gives her all his life. Here he immerses us in a midnight accompanied by his nightingale that, as the author himself says, it will continue singing to him though he is dead. We also see, in the same fragment, how the author manifests his longing for forming part of Nature, in my opinion, a way of not dying, he wants to continue contributing life to the flora that surrounds us.

The last stanza also speaks about death as an end of the dream. The image that the poet contributes is a high tower with a bell that has started to sing, and we see how, on having turned of the bells, passing quickly, visiting valleys, meadows, and creeks, it wakes us up, with the poet of a wonderful dream when we notice that the nightingale has already stopped singing.

Freedom

The author talks about freedom when he describes to us the nightingale, and he immerses us in a space surrounded with leafy trees while we imagine ourselves, in the middle of the forest, observing how the nightingale, from the highest branch of a tree, sings without being spied on by anybody.

It is freedom because he makes us travel during a black but clear night where without shadows, that could mean distress of life, we could see the moon and the stars shining. In this image we can imagine that when we die we are able to see how wonderful is the world because we don´t have to worry about the material things, it is like a new life in which we will live forever.

But the author also gives us the opposite side, he invites us to have a vision in which we are in an unknown and dark place surrounded by fear. This image can be interpretated as the distress of life, this could mean that you are fed up of living ignorated, and, in every moment, you are worried about the chaos surrounding mankind.

The clearer example that the poem gives us about freedom is the seventh stanza; using the nightingale, the poem tells us why the poet is comparising himself with this animal and the answer is that the poet wants to fell free, to fly near the sky, to turn his life into a better one; he doesn´t want to feel humiliated, ignorated. Nature is used by the poet to takes us to a tale land.

Poetry

The poet uses poetry to talk about itself. Keats personifies the poetry putting it under the feathers of the nightingale, and he turns her into a free element difficult to reach. The nightingale will turn into our guide to teach to us the Venus of the night in all its brilliance. But, in my opinion, it is in the seventh stanza where the poetry talks about itself. The poet says (7th stanza, verses 61 to 64) the poetry will never die, it will live if someone wants to read it. Here he also shows us how the poetry does not deal in social conditions and when she flies, she leaves her trace in the heart of the reader.

Nevertheless other poets have looked at nature for something to tell, a place to describe. This one is the case of the second chosen poem. " Oh Nightingale, Thou surely art" by William Wordsworth.

In this poem what we will do is to take out some verses and I will describe the image that was in my mind when I was reading it, this way we will see how I interpreted the poem.

The title gives us the first tip, only we have to see whether the author introduces other topics or he is praising nature as main topic.

"O Nightingale! thou surely art/ A creature of a fiery heart":/ These notes of thine-- they pierce and pierce/Tumultuous harmony and fierce!"

The author names the nightingale, as if he were dedicating it the poem, and begins to describe it as "a creature of a fiery heart".

"Thou sing'st as if the God of wine/ Had helped thee to a Valentine;"

The poet places us sitted, under a tree, hearing the nightingale, enjoying harmony and loneliness.

"A song in mockery and despite/Of shades, and dews, and silent night;/ And steady bliss, and all the loves/ Now sleeping in these peaceful groves."

In these four verses, the poet offers us an identification: the singing of the nightingale is compared with the celestial music, this one talks about love.

Suddenly, in our imagination, everything changes and becomes dark, everything is waved, and we see the clarity of a forest too far away where all happy love resides; whereas we are inmerses during a black night.

" I heard a Stock-dove sing or say/ His homely tale, this very day;/ His voice was buried among trees,/ Yet to be come at by the breeze:"

We see now how the poet changes the topic of the poem, we can find ourselves hearing the monotonous singing of a dove, a chant that comes to us through air.

"He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed;/And somewhat pensively he wooed:/ He sang of love, with quiet blending, /Slow to begin, and never ending"

Following the previous image, our senses continue listening to the singing of the dove, which does not stop expressing a sound that seems to us to be grand, and that only can be dedicated to love.

"Of serious faith, and inward glee;/ That was the song-- the song for me!"

Here there comes the end of our trip, the poet talks about his feelings and he says that this is the way he sings to love, as well; a melody that will never end.

Personal opinion:

I have chosen these two poems, because I thought that they will give the best example of what i wanted to talk, Nature.

These two poems have several images to show all that the poet wants to say to us. Here, Nature is described as something that is very close to us, and that's what i think about nature, and poetry, all of them have to be considered as part of the human being.

O Nightingale! Thou surely art W. Wordsworth
 
 O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art
 A creature of a "fiery heart":--
 These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce;
 Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
 Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
 Had helped thee to a Valentine;
 A song in mockery and despite
 Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
 And steady bliss, and all the loves
 Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.  10
 I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
 His homely tale, this very day;
 His voice was buried among trees,
 Yet to be come at by the breeze:
 He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed;
 And somewhat pensively he wooed:
 He sang of love, with quiet blending,
 Slow to begin, and never ending;
 Of serious faith, and inward glee;
 That was the song--the song for me! 20
  1807.
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Ode To a Nightingale J. Keats.

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:

’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,        5

 But being too happy in thine 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.        10

2.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,        15

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:        20

3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,        25

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

 Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.        30

4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,        35

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.        40

5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;        45

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.        50

6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,        55

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad           I

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

 To thy high requiem become a sod.        60

7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

 In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path        65

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.        70

8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toil me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

 As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades        75

 Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?        80

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