Please give a summary of "Ode to a Nightingale."

In John Keats' poem, "Ode to a Nightingale," he is
speaking directly to the creature reputed to have the loveliest song of all
birds.

Keats
was a key element in the Romantic Movement. Known especially for his love of the country
and sensuous descriptions of the beauty of nature, his poetry also resonated with deep
philosophic questions.

First
Keats refers to heartache, numbness, as if from hemlock, a deadly poison, or some drug
that has brought him near death, as he alludes to "Lethe-wards," Lethe being the river
of forgetfulness in Hades—where the dead reside, in Greek mythology. Dryads are the tree
nymphs in Greek mythology, and Keats describes the nightingale as one as he sings,
moving among the upper limbs.

In the second stanza, Keats
refers to the fountain Hippocrene, another allusion the to Greek mythology, the water of
which was supposed to provide poetic inspiration if one would drink of it. There are
repeated images of nature:

...draught of vintage! that hath
been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd
earth,

Tasting of Flora and the
country-green,

But Keats seems to
wish, too, that such a drink would allow him to meld with nature to be with the
nightingale:

That I might drink, and leave the world
unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest
dim:

In the third stanza, Keats turns to images of age and
death, even youth and death. Keats himself suffered, and eventually
died, from tuberculosis, a deadly lung disease of his day. His sadness is evident,
whether for himself alone or for others as well, the promise of a lifetime lost because
of impending death:

Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous
eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond
to-morrow.

Keats alludes again to mythological Bacchus,
the Roman god of wine; Keats will not escape with drink, but with
poetry ("Poesy"), even while his mind may not cooperate. He looks heavenward to the
Queen-moon and her court of "Fays," (an archaic term for "fairies"), where the
nightingale may reach, but not he on earth, where there is no light: perhaps no "hope,"
as it would seem the light of the moon does not reach him, and of Heaven, only a breeze
may stir him.

The next stanza once again provides
life-affirming images of nature. Though Keats cannot see the flowers around him or what
fragrances come through the darkness (and this may be figurative darkness, close to
death perhaps), he can still imagine what each month brings, going through the seasons,
as if he will not be there to do
so:

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree
wild;
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White hawthorn,
and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast-fading violets
cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest
child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy
wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer
eves.

The sixth stanza describes Keats' illness: he has
been so ill that he has "been half in love with easeful Death." He sometimes senses that
in a way it would be good to die: being released finally from his pain, even while the
nightingale fills the night with song.

The following stanza
praises the bird, speaking to his immortality, and man's love for his song down through
the ages, even with Biblical Ruth, missing home, standing in the fields of
corn.

His soul is brought back from its fancy, with the
word, "forlorn," reminding him of his plight. Imagination ("fancy") can only distract
him for so long. He bids the bird farewell, and wonders if he is awake or merely
dreaming.