Ode on Melancholy (Part Deux)

Ode on Melancholy (Part Deux)

NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, 5
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10

Ideas

• Wolf's-bane, nightshade, yew-berries: death is associated with nature and the romantic notion of cosmic oneness; the returning as dead to nature.
• The tone of the narrator is concerned; yet at the end of the stanza he offers and explanation for his pleads. Here he claims that if more shade is added to 'shade', then the 'wakeful anguish of the soul' will be drowned, terminated. Keats points out that there is no point in furthering one's melancholy (in adding shade to shade), for it inevitably will lead to death, and in death there is no soul to soothe, no 'wakeful anguish'... Nothing. 
•  Overall message: The first stanza is Keats' plea against self-destruction. His romantic concept of the interconnectivity between man and nature is present in his association of death with nature as an inevitable cycle. Keats' message is optimistic and original: anguish may be in your soul, but it is better to be passionately suffering than to be put out of it forever.  

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, 15
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globèd peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 20

Ideas

• The second stanza puts forward an interesting idea that melancholy is not a thing inherent of men, but rather that falls 'sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud' and covers mountains and takes over the flowers too. This is the clearest example of the aforementioned abstraction of cosmic oneness, as melancholy affects not only men but the environment surrounding it as well. 
• The tone of the narrator is optimistic and quixotical: he provides solutions to the melancholy fits by insisting that the interaction between man and nature will heal him and release him from his burdens. The beauty of nature in its one second of fleeting perfection is enough to make him happy again. 
• Overall message: this stanza also has a powerful conclusion. Keats claims that even when 'thy mistress' is angry and beside herself, 'he' (whoever Keats is talking to-maybe someone in particular, maybe his readers) should look right into her eyes and feed on them and their passion. It seems that Keats does not mind whether passion is negative or positive, as long as it is a burning sensation that transmits emotion. I love this. 

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30

Ideas

• This last stanza is a complex conclusion to the previous stanzas. There is a Taoist concept behind it: there is no good without evil, and Melancholy itself is the prize at the end of the poem. Before this, we know what we should not do (Stanza One), and how to deal with it (Stanza Two), but it is the third one that leaves us alone in the void of melancholic abysm. Lines such as 'Beauty that must die' or 'joy, whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu' juxtapose the cheerful cycle of life and death in nature of stanza two as a remedy for melancholy, and the abstract feelings of life, which behave in the same way but somehow make us more melancholic as we don't want them to burn out. 
• This last stanza depresses me, yet I find it so beautifully written and so true that I cannot neglect it. It is a universal conclusion, timeless and aesthetically flawless. The images evoked in the line 'though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine' are subtle and deep and my favorite. 

Conclusion 

The poem is rich in imagery, and it's message is so beautiful (and distressing) that it is my favorite poem; I cannot avoid perceiving the last stanza as apocalyptic- the whole of it reminds me of the phrase 'Time destroys everything' and this only generates angst and melancholy.