No More Learning

In the _Ode on Melancholy_ Keats, in a more bitter mood, finds the
presence, in a fleeting world, of eternal beauty the source of the
deepest melancholy. To encourage your melancholy mood, he tells us, do
not look on the things counted sad, but on the most beautiful, which are
only quickly-fading manifestations of the everlasting principle of
beauty. It is then, when a man most deeply loves the beautiful, when he
uses his capacities of joy to the utmost, that the full bitterness of
the contrast between the real and the ideal comes home to him and
crushes him. If he did not feel so much he would not suffer so much; if
he loved beauty less he would care less that he could not hold it long.

But in the ode _To Autumn_ Keats attains to the serenity he has been
seeking. In this unparalleled description of a richly beautiful autumn
day he conveys to us all the peace and comfort which his spirit
receives. He does not philosophize upon the spectacle or draw a moral
from it, but he shows us how in nature beauty is ever present. To the
momentary regret for spring he replies with praise of the present hour,
concluding with an exquisite description of the sounds of autumn--its
music, as beautiful as that of spring. Hitherto he has lamented the
insecurity of a man's hold upon the beautiful, though he has never
doubted the reality of beauty and the worth of its worship to man. Now,
under the influence of nature, he intuitively knows that beauty once
seen and grasped is man's possession for ever. He is in much the same
position that Wordsworth was when he declared that

Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.

This was not the last poem that Keats wrote, but it was the last which
he wrote in the fulness of his powers. We can scarcely help wishing
that, beautiful as were some of the productions of his last feverish
year of life, this perfect ode, expressing so serene and untroubled a
mood, might have been his last word to the world.


NOTES ON THE ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

In the early months of 1819 Keats was living with his friend Brown at
Hampstead (Wentworth Place).
In April a nightingale built her nest in
the garden, and Brown writes: 'Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy
in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast table
to the grass-plot under a plum, where he sat for two or three hours.
When he came into the house I perceived he had some scraps of paper in
his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On
inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his
poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale. The writing was not well
legible, and it was difficult to arrange the stanza on so many scraps.
With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his _Ode to a
Nightingale_. '

PAGE 107. l. 4. _Lethe. _ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 81, note.

l. 7. _Dryad. _ Cf.