Happiness and Hemlock

In the first stanza of Ode to a Nightingale, the narrator speaks of feeling a "drowsy numbness" like that experienced when one drinks hemlock. As the note says, hemlock is a sedative that is deadly in large doses. It also states that Lethe is a mythic river in the underworld which produces forgetfulness of a previous life. This is certainly fitting with the sedative effects of hemlock, but to take it further, by saying he "Lethe wards had sunk", the narrator could mean that he was not only sinking towards this forgetfulness, but also possibly the underworld and death itself. Keats seems to imply that happiness is much like hemlock.

We see this happiness in the nightingale, who is "being too happy in thine happiness". Use of the word "too" implies that it is excessive, and it gives the phrase a negative connotation. In stanza two, the narrator speaks of drinking (although it mentions wine, not hemlock), then in stanza three expresses a desire to "fade", "dissolve" and "forget", which can be linked to the first stanza in which hemlock and the river of Lethe are spoken of. He is hoping to escape that which "thou amongst the leaves hast never known", which is quite obviously referring to the nightingale, which again, is the representation of excessive happiness. The nightingale is quite naive, knowing nothing of the pains and struggles that our narrator so wants to forget. He will follow the nightingale, but his "dull brain perplexes and retards"...this is possibly referring to the dulling of the senses by a sedative, as I like to think, happiness. But where he is there is no light. He is in darkness and cannot see or truly sense what surrounds him, but can only guess.

As I believe Kelsey(?) said, the word "forlorn" brings the narrator back to himself. "The fancy cannot cheat so well as she is famed to do". Perhaps the fancy that is being referred to is that of numbing the senses, believing happiness, in order to escape pain. But this sedate and numb state is not pure ecstasy . This fancy cannot cheat him into believing this the ideal state.

Finally, (I'm assuming) the nightingale is referred to as "deceiving elf". Perhaps because in his extreme happiness, he has tricked us into believe that we can be as happy and carefree. But the nightingale was "not born for death". We forget that it has not experienced that same pains of life that we as humans have, "where but to think is to be full of sorrow". In the end, I feel Keats is giving a sort of warning against believing we can achieve the pure happiness and freedom from pain/ease of living that we think we see in nature, and that we in fact shouldn't attempt it. For in dulling ourselves to pain, we are dulling ourselves to our senses and the world.