Ode on Melancholy - John Keats
Finding Depth in Sorrow and Transience
Ode on Melancholy
I
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,
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.
II
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,
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.
III
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
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.
Published in 1819, “Ode on Melancholy” is one of John Keats’s great odes, offering a nuanced exploration of the relationship between sorrow and beauty. Keats begins by warning against dulling pain with poisons or succumbing to numbness—he rejects the idea of escaping sadness by means of deathly or lethargic indulgences. Instead, he suggests that the soul should fully experience moments of melancholy, seeing them as a vital part of life’s richness.
Central to the poem is the assertion that melancholy and delight are intertwined. Keats describes how, in the “temple of Delight,” Melancholy also has her ‘shrine.’ Sorrow, he argues, arrives precisely when joy is most vivid and heightens an awareness of life’s fragility. The poem urges readers to consume sadness by immersing themselves in beauty—be it a flower, a wave’s rainbow, or even a beloved’s passionate anger—thereby transforming that sorrow into a deeper appreciation of transience and the intensity of living.
In the final stanza, Keats points out that no true experience of delight is complete without an acknowledgment of loss. The ability to fully ‘taste’ joy involves understanding its mortality, and thus braving the sadness that comes when joy passes. Only those who dare to embrace this profound interplay can glean deeper insight and empathy. Keats’s poem thus champions a Romantic ideal of heightened emotional experience, where the light and dark facets of feeling exist in a delicately balanced, if bittersweet, harmony.
Key points
• Advises against numbing sorrow, urging readers to engage fully with melancholy.
• Connects deep sadness and profound joy, showing how each magnifies the other.
• Uses vibrant natural imagery to illustrate how sorrow can enhance appreciation of beauty.
• Argues that true delight, understood in its ephemerality, inevitably carries an undercurrent of sorrow.
• Exemplifies the Romantic emphasis on emotional intensity and the inseparability of pain and pleasure.
