The poem fuses "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" to adequately express the double life of human experience. The poem's movement through the different modes is achieved through a loose stylistic perfection; a dream-like experience of intoxication done with intense canto regularity. Ode to a Nightingale not only waxes and wanes between these realms, it vibrates deeply with a true look at what Keats in his life has endured, and foreshadows the death to come. Within the beauty there is still the ever-present, unrelenting mortality of man to ground us: "Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;/Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,where youth grows pale, and spectra-thin, and dies" (Keats, ln. 24-6). Although, he is not too forlorn to take flight in the ecstasy of his own creative imagination and poetry. He allows the bird song to carry him off: "Away! Away! For I will fly to thee" (Keats, ln. 31). He escapes "the dull brain" (Keats, ln. 34) and forgets himself long enough to see "the Queen Moon is on her throne,/Clustered around by all her starry fays" (Keats, ln. 37-8). Stanzas 4 and 5 suppress the pain, which he returns to for the last three. However, we do not feel betrayed in either direction or pulled too far to one side or the other, and in the conclusion are left to wonder which realm is reality: "Was it a vision, or a waking dream?Fled is that music - do I wake or sleep?" (Keats, ln. 79-80).
             As one reads this poem of John Keats, the overwhelming feeling is the envy the poet feels toward the nightingale and his song. He compared the carefree life of the bird to the pain, suffering and mortality of men. He continually referred to Greek gods and mythology when speaking of the nightingale as somehow the Bird possessed magical powers. The speaker opened with the explanation my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as he listened to the song of the nightingale. He compared his feelings to those o...