Ode on Melancholy

“Ode on Melancholy” is a poem that was composed by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819. It was published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems (1820), which appeared shortly before Keats’s death at the age of 25.

Keats was part of the second generation of British Romantic poets who expanded upon the ideas conveyed by William Wordsworth in his Preface to the second printing of Lyrical Ballads (1800). “Ode on Melancholy,” along with five other odes—“Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode to Psyche,” “Ode on Indolence,” and “To Autumn”—make up what are known as Keats’s “great odes,” which are considered some of the best poetry ever created by an English writer. Stylistically, Keats adopted a new stanza form for the odes, borrowing from sonnets. The poems are lyrical, centering themes such as the mystery of existence, the beauty of nature, and the relationship between creativity and imagination.

In his lifetime, much of Keats’s early work was treated with disdain; however, due to laudatory memorials by contemporaries like Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as the quality of his last collection, Keats’s reputation grew rapidly after his death. By the late 1800s, he was said to be one of the greatest poets in all of English literature.

Content Warning: The poem discusses suicidal ideation.

Poet Biography

John Keats was born on October 31, 1795, in Moorgate, England, to Thomas Keats, a horse groom, and Frances Jennings Keats. Keats was the eldest of the family’s four children and was close to his siblings George, Thomas, and Fanny. Keats boarded at a small school that had an impressive curriculum; he developed an interest in the classics and history, with the work of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser being favorites. In 1804, his father died in a horse accident. In 1809, at the age of 13, Keats won his first academic prize. A year later, his mother died from tuberculosis, with Keats nursing her until the end. He and his siblings were willed an inheritance, but were never informed of the gift. Money was always a concern and spurred Keats’s subsequent career.

He apprenticed with a local surgeon and apothecary and studied medicine and surgery. However, despite getting his apothecary’s license in 1816, allowing him to practice as a physician and surgeon, he announced his intent to be a poet rather than a surgeon. His first poem appeared in May of that year. In October, he met Leigh Hunt, a poet and close friend of poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hunt helped Keats publish his first book of poetry, but it was a critical failure and his publisher soon dropped him. Keats had to rely on the charity of friends and patrons for subsistence.

In 1817, Keats and his brothers moved to Hampstead. There, he met Richard Woodhouse, who became a close friend and supporter convinced of Keats’ genius. Woodhouse kept records of Keats’s poetry and letters, and, with Hunt, introduced Keats to other prominent literary figures. Keats gained a reputation for unusual, sensuous poetry. His long poem Endymion was published in July 1818, and was promptly savaged by critics, particularly John Gibson Lockhart, who disparaged Keats, Hunt, and their circle for their lack of talent and working-class backgrounds, deriding them as the “Cockney School” in the prominent Blackwood’s Magazine. This view was also taken up by John Wilson Croker in The Quarterly Review. Many later believed that Lockhart and Croker’s vitriol contributed to Keats’s demise; Keats’s friends and contemporaries suggested he never got over the slight.

That fall, Keats met Fanny Brawne and fell deeply in love. When Keats’s brother Thomas died, he moved to Wentworth Place, near Hamstead Heath, to live with his friend, the businessman Charles Armitage Brown. During this time, he visited William Wordsworth and wrote some of his most significant works, including the six poems known as the “great odes,” of which “Ode on Melancholy” is one. In October 1819, Keats and Fanny became engaged, but Keats knew he could not financially provide for a wife. Their relationship stalled, although Fanny remained the muse of much of his later poetry. In February 1820, Keats developed tuberculosis, which led to several lung hemorrhages as the collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems was published.

Doctors urged Keats to go to a warmer climate for his health, so he left for Rome in September, but his decline was nevertheless rapid and painful. He died on February 23, 1821, in the arms of his friend, the painter Joseph Severn. He was buried, at his request, under a tombstone without his name bearing the words “Here lies one whose Name was writ in Water.”

Poem Text

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist 

      Wolf’s-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.

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.

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 shalt taste the sadness of her might, 

               And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Keats, John. “Ode on Melancholy.” 1819. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The speaker exhorts the male addressee to not concentrate on the suicidal ideations that his melancholy has provoked, using references to the underworld of Greco-Roman mythology. The speaker implores the subject neither to dwell on the river of forgetfulness nor to ingest various poisons. The speaker further warns him not to befriend those that are acquainted with death or Hades. Losing himself in sorrowful obliteration or intoxication should be avoided. It is necessary to embrace the painful emotion at hand.

The speaker suggests alternatives to the self-destructive behaviors that can follow when feelings of melancholy cover the world “like a weeping cloud” (Line 12). Instead, the addressee should concentrate on the beauty of the physical world, including flowers, rainbows, and the seashore. Even the man’s angry romantic partner can be viewed with compassion and appreciated.

In the final stanza, the speaker personifies Melancholy as a character who exists side by side with the personas of Joy, Beauty, and Pleasure. All of these latter entities are listed as ephemeral, constantly coming into life, then quickly saying goodbye. The speaker points out that while the man can enter the “temple of Delight” (Line 25), and devour happiness like a delicious grape, to do so means becoming well-acquainted with Melancholy. Since Joy must pass, sadness is always present in the shadows and the human soul is always one of Melancholy’s “trophies” (Line 30).