Ode on A Grecian Urn by John Keats is a poem which analyzes the painting depicted on a Grecian Urn. It describes the scene taking place in the painting and then goes on further to show the two separate levels of how the painting may be interpreted. The first level is one of happiness and seems to suggest that those depicted in the painting are frozen in a state of joy and immortality. This level seems slightly superficial as it almost exaggerates the happiness of the scene, thus bringing forth the suggestion of the second level: one of death and mortality. It suggests the pointlessness of immortality and how one can not be happy living in the same state of feeling and mood even if it is one of happiness. Keats, who had tuberculosis at a very young age, may have had this hidden theme of death in the poem due to the fact that he knew he was dying himself.
             The opening stanza begins describing the scene in the picture and gives the reader a feeling of nothing but beauty and happiness. Keats says " A flowery tale more sweetly then our rhyme" and What wild Ecstasy?" seeming to suggest happiness within the painting. He goes on in the second stanza saying how the beauty of the scene will never be changed. Examples of this are the lines "nor ever can those trees be bare" and "happy melodist, unwearied forever piping songs forever new". Keats seems to be showing how the people depicted in this joyous picture will never have anything else than the beauty of the state in which they are in. The male in pursuit of a pretty girl, the melodist playing his peaceful tunes (whatever they may be), and the innocent girl filled with beauty will all remain forever. But is this really as desired as it seems?
             Looking past all the "flowery" images Keats paints for the reader, there can be found a sense of something not so happy...a sense ending. Beyond the shell of seemed happiness, lies a fate tha...