Ode to Psyche

“Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1819)

Keats wrote this famous ode in mid-May 1819, a few weeks after “Ode to Psyche.” Listening to the song of the nightingale, Keats’s speaker becomes transported into an eternal dimension of existence, which they contrast with “The weariness, the fever, and the fret” of human life. They also speculate, at the end of the ode, on the nature of their experience: “Was it a vision or a waking dream? / Fled is that music: Do I wake or sleep?” (Lines 79-80). The question echoes the one in “Ode to Psyche,” when the speaker asks: “Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see / The winged Psyche with awaken’d eyes?” (Lines 5-6).

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats (1820)

Keats also wrote this ode in May 1819. The ode explores time and eternity, passion and stillness, as Keats’s speaker observes the figures depicted on the urn. A young male lover pursues his beloved, and their passion is preserved for all time on the urn; “For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” (Line 20; Compare the stillness of Cupid and Psyche in their embrace in “Ode to Psyche.