Ode on Melancholy

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1819)

This ode, written at the same time as “Ode on Melancholy,” echoes similar imagery of poison and the underworld. The speaker feels numb, “as though of hemlock I had drunk, / Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains / One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk” (Lines 2-4). The poem similarly considers the paradoxical nature of beauty and sorrow. Despite the beauty of the world, the speaker wrestles with their pain, since “to think is to be full of sorrow / and leaden-eyed despairs” (Lines 27-28).

“The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!” by John Keats (1819)

This Shakespearean sonnet, written after completion of the odes, is generally believed to be about a parting with Fanny Brawne, although it can be read as Keats’s commentary on the end of the “day,” or life. The sense of loss is similar to that in “Ode on Melancholy,” as is the tempered optimism that because “I’ve read love’s missal through to-day, / [Night will] let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray” (Lines 13-14).

“La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad” by John Keats (1819)