Ode to a Nightingale

"Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?"

'Ode to a Nightingale' is a famous love poem by John Keats, written in 1819. Keats composed the poem in one day, after watching a nightingale in his garden build a nest in a plum tree.

This poem is one of several 'Great Odes of 1819', which include 'Ode on Indolence', 'Ode on Melancholy', 'Ode to a Nightingale', and 'Ode to Psyche'. Keats found earlier forms of poetry unsatisfactory for his purpose, and the collection represented a new development of the ode form.

The ode is a personal poem that describes Keats's journey into the state of Negative Capability. The tone of the poem rejects the optimistic pursuit of pleasure found within Keats's earlier poems, and explores the themes of nature, transience and mortality, the latter being particularly personal to Keats.

John Keats
(1795–1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from the periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets such as Alfred Tennyson has been immense. Elaborate word choice and sensual imagery characterize Keats's poetry, including a series of odes that were his masterpieces and which remain among the most popular poems in English literature.