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“Ode on Indolence”
The speaker has a vision of three figures, Love, Ambition, and Poetry, that pass him by as if etched on to a marble urn. Throughout the poem the speaker ponders why they appear before him and laments their disappearance with their every passing. In the end, the speaker relents to his idleness and bids them away as they have failed to rouse him.
Read a full Summary & Analysis of “Ode on Indolence.”
“Ode to Psyche”
The speaker addresses the goddess Psyche and promises that he will erect monuments of worship and praise to the goddess where heretofore none have been built for her.
Read a full Summary & Analysis of “Ode to Psyche.”
“Ode on a Nightingale”
The speaker speaks about the relationship between the nightingale’s eternal song and the speaker’s mortal life. The speaker longs to follow the nightingale, first through alcohol, and then through poetry, but laments that though he may die, the nightingale’s song will live forever. In the end of the ode, the speaker is uncertain if he has been awake or dreaming.
Read a full Summary & Analysis of “Ode to a Nightingale.”
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
The speaker addresses the urn, admiring its various images and scenes, and celebrates their impermeability and fixed beauty.
Read a full Summary & Analysis of “Ode to a Grecian Urn.”
“Ode on Melancholy”
The speaker begins by warning those befallen by melancholy what not to do, in one such case, suicide. The speaker then goes on to suggest that one filled with melancholy should fill themselves instead with beauty, especially the beauty that comes from the natural world. Finally, the poem ends by contemplating the relationship between pleasure and pain and how they are inextricably linked.
Read a full Summary & Analysis of “Odeon Melancholy.”
“To Autumn”
The speaker celebrates Autumn’s beauty and bountifulness directly correlating it to artistic expression, even though the poem ends in a rather somber tone as it acknowledges the coming of winter and the end of autumn.
