Ode to a Nightingale
John Keats
1795 to 1821
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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To take into the air my quiet breath;
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
And purple-stained mouth;
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
But here there is no light,
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
But being too happy in thine happiness, -
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
In some melodious plot
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
The same that oft-times hath
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
In the next valley-glades:
In such an ecstasy!
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?
And mid-May's eldest child,
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
No hungry generations tread thee down;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;