E21 Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats

Description: 
An immersive reading of excerpts from Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats with reflection on tuberculosis and the good death. 

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/ 

Work:

Ode to a Nightingale
by John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
         My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
         One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
         But being too happy in thine happiness,—
                That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
                        In some melodious plot
         Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
                Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

 O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
         Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
         Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

[…]

         That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
                And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
         What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
         Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
         Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

[…]

 Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

[…] 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
         I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
         To take into the air my quiet breath;
                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
                        In such an ecstasy!
         Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
                   To thy high requiem become a sod.

 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
         No hungry generations tread thee down;

References

Ode to a Nightingale: https://poets.org/poem/ode-nightingale 

 John Keats: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats 

Nightingale song: Digweed1 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Common_Nightingale%27s_song_1.ogg 

 Riva, M. From milk to rifampicin and back again: history of failures and successes in the treatment for tuberculosis. J Antibiot 67, 661–665 (2014).

 Sanderson C, Miller-Lewis L, Rawlings D, Parker D, Tieman J. "I want to die in my sleep"-how people think about death, choice, and control: findings from a Massive Open Online Course.