Ode to a Nightingale I My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense as though hemlock I had drunk Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past and lethe-wards had sunk; But being too happy in thine happiness that thou light winged dryad of the trees In some melodius plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full throated ease, II 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, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, and purple stained mouth; Tht I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim; III Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou amoung the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin and dies; And leaden eyed despairs. Where beauty cannot keep her lustorous eyes, Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow. IV Away! Away for I will fly to thee Not charloted 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, And haply the queen-moon is on her throne, Clustere'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. V 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; White hawthorn, and the pastoral egalantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves And mid mays eldest child the coming musk rose, full of dewy wine The murmourous haunt of flies on summers eve. John Keats