Ode on Melancholy

In “Ode on Melancholy,” Keats’s speaker advises a male addressee how to deal with sad or depressed feelings, expressing the idea that despite its discomfort, feeling despair can make life richer. Beauty, the speaker suggests, is heightened by its passing, and so melancholy has a poignant, sweeter side that the man should embrace.

In the first stanza, the speaker exhorts the man not to give into the suicidal ideation melancholy might bring. The speaker urges the addressee to avoid the waters of the “Lethe” (Line 1). Lethe is one of the rivers that flow through the Underworld in Greek mythology; those who drink from its waters lose all of their memories. The poem uses this allusion to convince the listener to live in the moment, rather than seeking denial or dissociation. The speaker insists that avoiding melancholy can only be done through dying by suicide, urging the addressee not to give in to the self-destructive urge to ingest toxic plants. The listener should not “twist / Wolf’s bane [. . .] for its poisonous wine” (Lines 1-2) nor use “nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine” (Line 4). Both herbs are deadly and have ties to the underworld—Proserpine is the Latin name for the Greek goddess Persephone, the queen of the underworld and the wife of Hades/Pluto.

Keats’s speaker also warns the listener not to pray for death, condemning the use of “yew-berries” (Line 5) as a “rosary” (Line 5). Yews were often planted in cemeteries due to their hardiness; their fruit, like the other plants mentioned, is poisonous to humans. Other images of death include the “beetle [and] death-moth” (Line 6), both associated with tombs and mortality. The speaker implores the man not to use these items as his new “Psyche” (Line 7), or soul; having the “downy owl” (Line 7)—a harbinger of death and traditionally associated with ill omens—be the man’s companion in “sorrow’s mysteries” (Line 8) is also advised against. Focusing on death and obliteration in this way, the speaker warns, will “drown the wakeful anguish of the soul” (Line 10). In other words, obsessively fixating on trying to escape melancholy by dying will prevent the man from seeing the possibilities within the depressed state—while he will “drown” the pain, he will also preclude himself from experiencing an awakening of the soul, however “anguished” (Line 10).

Instead, the speaker has ideas about healthier ways to deal with the sadness: distraction and leaning into the sad emotion. In the second stanza, recommendations include concentrating on objects of beauty if a “melancholy fit shall fall” (Line 11) and “hid[e] the green hill in an April shroud” (Line 14), or make the otherwise beautiful countryside foggy and rainy. When this happens, as is inevitable, the speaker suggests the man should zoom in from the larger obscured view and instead consider the details of surrounding nature. Look on individual flowers, such as “a morning rose” (Line 15) or “globed peonies” (Line 17). Alternately, observe the specific and isolated natural phenomenon of the “rainbow of the salt sand-wave” (Line 16). Taking in beauty in small, digestible, and definite quantities can mitigate feelings of sadness and despair.

Melancholy can feel and be isolating, so the speaker stresses the importance of cultivating a sympathetic response to another person’s emotional inner life. This kind of connection will demonstrate that extreme emotion is experienced by every being—there is nothing unique about the addressee’s melancholic bend. Here, the speaker urges the man to sympathize with his “mistress” (Line 18) who is expressing “some rich anger” (Line 18). By dwelling “deep, deep upon her peerless eyes” (Line 20) and holding “her soft hand” (Line 19) as she “rave[s]” (Line 19), the listener will practice outward compassion that should spur inner empathy. The lover’s anger doesn’t eliminate her specialness or the listener’s admiration and care of her. This shows how two disparate qualities can be intertwined.

One of the reasons not to react to the woman’s anger with anything but sympathy and aesthetic appreciation is the knowledge that she “dwells with Beauty […] / And Joy” (Lines 21-22)—fleeting, ephemeral things that can only fade and disappear. Beauty “must die” (Line 21) while Joy’s “hand is ever at his lips / bidding adieu” (Line 23). Other positive aspects of lived experience are also short-lived. Moreover, their existence is only possible because people know what their opposite feels like. For example, “aching Pleasure” (Line 23) and “the very temple of Delight” (Line 25) are subject to the tinge of “Veil’d Melancholy” (Line 26)—the best things in life only resonate as good and bring ecstasy because right behind them is the darkness of sadness.

However, Melancholy is mostly invisible. Her shrine only reveals her to the man who can enjoy “Joy’s grape” (Line 28) against his “strenuous tongue” (Line 27), even while knowing that as soon as he has eaten the sweet grape, he will be forced to “taste the sadness of her might” (Line 28). Moments of happiness are transitory, which always makes us mourn them, but all this means is that the man should glory in the beautiful, even as existence is clouded over with “sadness” (Line 29).