John Keats
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
Bright star
O bright star, may I be as firm as you—
but not alone in the night sky twinkling high,
with eyes that never close,
like an ascetic hermit awake all night,
staring at the sea washing the earthly cliffs,
Like a priest performing a purifying bath,
or looking down upon the moors and mountains of the lower world
Covered in a shroud of gently falling snow—
not so—but forever identified,
on the breast of my beautiful lover,
Always feel its gentle ups and downs,
always awake, in sweet restlessness,
always, always listening to her soft breathing,
always living like this - or fainting and dying.
(Translated by Gu Zixin)
In 1818, Keats was 23 years old. That year, the poet fell ill with tuberculosis, while the poet was still in love with Miss Fonnie Brown. As the poet himself said, the two things he often think about are the sweetness of love and the time of his own death. In such a situation, the poet is emotional, full of grief and anger and longing for life. On a deep night, under the thick branches and the loud singing of the birds, the poet wrote this "Ode to the Nightingale" with 8 stanzas and more than 80 lines in one breath.
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
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-strained mouth;
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 specter-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond tomorrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! Tender is the night,
And haply the Queen Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways .
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered 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.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called 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 bonr for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperors and clown;
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hilside; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley glades.
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music --- Do I wake or sleep?
Ode to a Nightingale
Zha Liang Zheng translation of
my heart aches, and a drowsy numbness
pierce the senses, like drinking poison had dove,
and just like the opiate to the drains,
then sinking toward the Antilles Lethe:
I am not jealous of your good Luck,
but your joy makes me so glad—
for in the bright world of the woods,
you, light-winged fairy,
hide in the green and shadow of the beech, and
let go of your voice and sing of summer.
Hey, if only there was a sip of wine!
The mellow drink that has been refrigerated underground for many years,
once you taste it, it reminds people of the green state,
flower gods, love songs, sunshine and dance!
If there were a cup of southern warmth,
full of bright red fountains of inspiration,
with pearly foam on the rim and purplish
stains on the lips;
oh, I would drink and leave the world,
and go with you to hide in the dark woods:
far away Land, far away, let me forget
everything you never knew in the leaves,
forget this fatigue, fever, and restlessness,
this world that makes one sit and lament;
where youth is pale, emaciated, dead,
and "Paralysis" has a few white hairs swaying;
here, a little thought is full of
sadness and gray despair,
while "beauty" can't maintain the brilliance of bright eyes, and the
new love will wither before tomorrow.
Go! Go! I'm going to fly towards you, I
don't need to ride in a chariot with the god of wine,
I'm going to spread the invisible wings of poetry,
Though the mind is tired and weary;
go! Oh, I have gone with you!
The night is so gentle, the moon is on
her throne, surrounded by a group of stars that guard her;
but it is not very bright here,
except for a ray of sky light, carried by the breeze,
green gloom, and mossy winding paths.
I can't see what kind of flowers and grasses are at my feet,
what kind of fragrant flowers hang on the branches;
in the warm darkness, I can only guess
what kind of fragrance should be
given to the fruit trees, the forests, the grass,
the white citrus Flowers, roses of the fields,
violets that
brittle among the green leaves, and the coddles of mid-May,
the musk roses studded with wine,
it is a harbour for the gnats of summer nights.
I listened in the dark, how many times
I almost fell in love with the silent death,
I called his name in thoughtful poetry,
begging him to scatter my breath into the void;
and now, how rich is death:
in the middle of the night Suddenly the soul leaves the world,
when you are pouring
out such ecstasy in your heart !
You will still sing, but I no longer hear it—
your funeral song can only be sung to a piece of grass.
O immortal bird, you will not die!
Hungry generations cannot ravage thee;
Tonight I stumbled upon a song
that delighted ancient emperors and villagers;
perhaps the same song that stirred
Ruth's melancholy heart, made her weep,
standing in a foreign country. Thinking of home in the valley;
It is this voice that often
drives the casement in the lost fairyland:
a beautiful woman looks at the sinister waves of the sea.
Oh, lost! This sentence is like a bell
that jolted me awake to where I was standing!
do not! Fantasy, this deceitful demon boy,
can't keep playing its rumored tricks.
do not! do not! Your complaining song
flows over the lawn, over the quiet stream, and
up the hillside; at this moment, it is
buried deep in the nearby valley:
oh, is this an illusion, or a dream?
The singing went: - am I sleeping? Are you awake?
John Keats (1795-1821)
was born in London at the end of the 18th century. He was one of the outstanding writers of English poetry and a major member of the Romantics. Keats' parents died successively during his teenage years, and although two brothers and an older sister took great care of him, the grief of losing his parents too early continued to affect Keats. At Enfield School, Keats received a traditional formal education, and in reading and writing Keats was encouraged by his teacher, Charles Cowden Clarke.
The young Keats was so fond of Virgil that at the age of 14 he translated Virgil's long poem "Aeneid" into English. In 1810, Keats was sent to apprentice as a pharmacist. Five years later, Keats was admitted to a medical school in London, but within a year, Keats gave up his medical career to concentrate on writing poetry. Keats tried to write poetry very early, and his early works were mostly imitations. In 1817, Keats' first book of poetry was published. The book of poetry received some good reviews, but also some extremely harsh and offensive reviews, published in one of the most influential magazines at the time (Blackwood's magazine). Undeterred, Keats published a new collection of poems, Endymion, the following spring.
In the summer of 1818, Keats traveled to the north of England and Scotland. On the way, he received news that his brother Tom had severe tuberculosis. Keats rushed home to take care of Tom. At the end of the year, when Tom died, Keats moved to a friend's house in Hampstead, which is now known as the Keats home. There, Keats met and fell deeply in love with a young female neighbor, Fanny Brawne. Sickness and financial problems plagued Keats for the next few years, but he wrote an astonishing number of excellent works, including The Night of St. Agnes, Ode to a Nightingale and "To Autumn" and other famous works. Keats coughed up blood for the first time in March 1820, and shortly thereafter died of rapidly worsening tuberculosis on February 23, 1821, on his way to Italy for recuperation.
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