Critical Analysis of "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats

John Keats poems “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” exist for the purpose of describing a moment in life,
such as a brief song of a nightingale and scene depicted on an urn; within each moment there exists a multitude of emotions,
and changing from one to another indefinably. Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” deals with the perplexing and indefinable
relationship between life and art. Paradoxically, it is the life of the urn that would normally associate with stillness, melancholy
and bereavement that is shown to be representative of life. In “Ode to a Nightingale” a visionary happiness is communing
with the nightingale as its song is contrasted with the dead weight of human grief and sicknesses, and the transience of youth
and beauty. The odes are similar in many ways as in both Keats depicts the symbols of immortality and escapism, and grief to
joy. However, the symbol of nightingale is a reality dealing with the nature and the urn is a fantasy, a piece of art. Both require
different senses for admiring. By comparing the elements of poems, it is evident that all aspects relate directly to the human
spirit and emotions.

The nightingale and urn are symbols of immortality, a symbol of continuity of nature and art respectively. In the “Ode to a
Nightingale” Keats contrasts the birds’ immortality with the mortality of human beings as he states “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,”(III,
25) but the nightingale, entertaining generations after generations has become an immortal species, so much so that the
sound that poet has heard was heard in ancient days by emperor and clown, by Ruth (a virtuous Moabite widow who
according to Old Testament Book of Ruth, left her own country to accompany her mother-in-law Naomi, back to Naomi’s
native land), where she was amidst the corn, remembering her home town; and also by fairies. The urn in the “Ode on a
Grecian Urn” is a large sculpted vessel with Greek figures is an “unravished bride”(I, 1), an immortal perfect object unmarked
by the passage of time. As a “Sylvan historian”(I, 3), it provides a record of a distant culture. Although, the urn exists in the real
world, which is mutable or subject to changes, yet the life it’s depicting is unchanging.

Next, the poet has beautifully fused pain with imaginary relief or the unconscious joyous things of nature and art. To escape
from pain of reality, he begins to move into the world of imagination. When he hears the nightingale, he yearns for fine wine
from south France, not to get drunk but to achieve a state of mind, which will give him the pleasure of the company of the
beautiful nightingale, “that I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:”(II, 19-20)
However, the poet realizes that he does not require wine for being with the bird, so chooses the route of flying to her through
his poetry. “ Away! Away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of
Poesy…………..And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays”(IV, 36,37). In “Ode on a
Grecian Urn,” the poet experiences the life depicted on the urn and ambiguously comments that the urn “dost tease us out of
thought/As doth eternity”(V, 45). By teasing him “out of thought” (V stanza) urn draws him from the real world to an ideal,
fantasy world. In lines “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?,”(I, 5,6,7,8)
poet is caught up in excitement, activities and from a keen observer becomes a participant in the life on the urn. He gets
emotionally involved in the apparent activities going on including the religious sacrifice of the cow, “Who are these coming to
the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead’st thou heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with
garlands drest?”(IV, 31,32,33,34) Thus, in both the odes, Keats tried to free himself from the painful world by identifying with
the nightingale, representing nature, or the urn, representing art.

The inner pain and grief engulfing the poet is revealed in a very subtle manner in both the odes of discussion. Even when the
speaker is in the imaginative world with the nightingale, he is thinking of death in “embalmed darkness.” Gradually the feeling
of being embalmed becomes a wish for death. He also realizes that death means he could no longer hear the bird song and
will be non-existent. Suddenly the beautiful bird song seems to him more like “requiem”(VI, 60), a song of death. As the reality
is painful, poet realizes that, “fancy”(VIII, 73), has cheated him. The bird is not a symbol anymore but an actual bird that poet
had heard in the beginning. The nightingale flies away and its song seems a “plaintive anthem”(VIII, 75), very faint. Its voice is
“buried deep”(VIII, 77) refers to its physical distance. As the music goes from his life, the poet wonders whether his end is
close. In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” the poet realizes as the figures are frozen, they will never change. Keats emphasizes the
feeling of permanence by repeating the words “never, never.”(II, 17) The repetition implies that man will never be able to kiss
the maiden because his position will never change, and the space between both of them will never decrease. Poet also realizes
when he is no more in this world, the urn would still be there and it will say, “Beauty is Truth and truth beauty…. (V, 49).

In the “Ode to Nightingale” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” the symbols contrast. The nightingale is a living creature and a part of
nature. In contrast the urn is stationary and a manmade object. Although both symbols signify immortality, and continuity, the
symbols contrast in that the nightingale is reality, and the life on the urn is a fantasy with the portrayal of frozen images
depicting dynamic life. Both symbols require different senses for admiring. The sense of hearing allows Keats to hear the
nightingale’s enchanting music. By listening to the nightingale Keats other senses are mesmerized. In contrast Keats sense of
sight allows him to become captivated with the urn. By observing the urn, Keats other senses are awakened.

John Keats presented in his poetry many issues, such as nature, existence and the soul. All of these aspects relate directly to
the human spirit. The spiritual nature of Keats poetry concerns itself with exploring human emotions and understanding
nature. He wrote the “Ode to a Nightingale” and the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” at a difficult time in his life. As a result there are
many similarities and few differences. Together both the similarities and differences, illustrate the human spirit, and a
multitude of emotions.

Analysis: "Ode to a Nightingale"

      A major concern in "Ode to a Nightingale" is Keats's perception of the conflicted nature of human life, i.e., the
interconnection or mixture of pain/joy, intensity of feeling/numbness or lack of feeling, life/death, mortal/immortal,
the actual/the ideal, and separation/connection.

      In this ode, Keats focuses on immediate, concrete sensations and emotions, from which the reader can draw a
conclusion or abstraction. Does the experience which Keats describes change the dreamer? As reader, you must
follow the dreamer's development or his lack of development from his initial response to the nightingale to his final
statement about the experience.

Ode to a Nightingale" is essentially Keats' quest for poetic inspiration and fulfillment. The author uses many symbolic
meanings to indicate this. Keats descriptions essentially transform the nightingale from its mortal form to an immortal
creature of inspiration. These descriptions indicate how the nightingale is able to transcend any and all boundaries of human
life and reality. The countless imagery Keats uses throughout the poem is a further enhancement of Keats' intentions.

Themes

Ode to a Nightingale describes a series of conflicts between reality and the Romantic ideal. In the words of Richard Fogle,
"The principal stress of the poem is a struggle between ideal and actual: inclusive terms which, however, contain more
particular antitheses of pleasure and pain, of imagination and commonsense reason, of fullness and privation, of permanence
and change, of nature and the human, of art and life, freedom and bondage, waking and dream." [12] Of course, the
nightingale's song is the dominant image and dominant "voice" within the ode. The nightingale is also the object of empathy
and praise within the poem. However, the nightingale and the discussion of the nightingale is not simply about the bird or the
song, but about human experience in general. This is not to say that the song is a simple metaphor, but it is a complex image
that is formed through the interaction of the conflict voices of praise and questioning. [13]

On this theme, David Perkins summarizes the way Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn perform this
when he says, "we are dealing with a talent, indeed an entire approach to poetry, in which symbol, however
necessary, may possibly not satisfy as the principal concern of poetry, any more than it could with Shakespeare, but is
rather an element in the poetry and drama of human reactions".[14] However, there is a difference between an urn and
a nightingale in that the nightingale is not an eternal entity. Furthermore, in creating any aspect of the nightingale
immortal during the poem the narrator separates any union that he can have with the nightingale.[15]

The poem relies heavily on the process of sleeping and discusses both dreams and the act of awaking. Such uses are
not unique to Keats's poetry, and Ode to a Nightingale shares many of the same themes as Keats's Sleep and Poetry
and Eve of St. Agnes. This further separates the image of the nightingale's song from its closest comparative image,
the urn as represented in Ode on a Grecian Urn. The nightingale is distant and mysterious, and even disappears at
the end of the poem. The dream image emphasizes the shadowiness and elusiveness of the poem. These elements
make it impossible for there to be a complete self identification with the nightingale, but it also allows for self-
awareness to permeate throughout the poem, albeit in an altered state.[16]

Midway through the poem, there is a split between the two actions of the poem: the first is an attempt to identify with
the nightingale and its song, and the second is to discuss the convergence of the past with the future while
experiencing the present. This second theme is reminiscent of Keats's view of human progression through the
Mansion of Many Apartments and how man develops from experiencing and wanting only pleasure to understanding
truth as a mixture of both pleasure and pain. The Elysian fields and the nightingale's song in the first half of the poem
represent the pleasurable moments which overwhelm the individual like a drug. However, the experience does not
last forever, and the body is left desiring it until the narrator feels helpless without the pleasure. Instead of embracing
the coming truth, the narrator clings to poetry in order to hide from the loss of pleasure. Poetry does not bring about
the pleasure that the narrator original asks for, but it does liberate him from his desire for only pleasure.[17]

This emphasis on pleasure provoked Albert Guerard, Jr. to argue that within the poem is a "longing not for art but a
free reverie of any kind. The form of the poem is that of progression by association, so that the movement of feeling
is at the mercy of words evoked by chance, such words as fade and forlorn, the very words which like a bell tolls the
dreamer back to his sole self."[18] However, Fogle points out that the terms Guerard emphasizes are "associational
translations" and that Guerard misunderstands Keats's aesthetic.[19] After all, the acceptance of the loss of pleasure by
the end of the poem is an acceptance of life and, in turn, of death. Death was a constant theme that permeated aspects
of Keats poetry because he was exposed to death of his family members throughout his life.[20] Within the poem, there
are many images of death. The nightingale experiences a sort of death and even the god Apollo experiences death,
but his death reveals his own divine state. As Perkins explains, "But, of coure, the nightingale is not thought to be
literally dying. The point is that the deity or the nightingale can sing without dying. But, as the ode makes clear, man
cannot – or at least not in a visionary way."[21]

With this theme of a loss of pleasure and inevitable death, the poem, according to Claude Finney, describes "the
inadequacy of the romantic escape from the world of reality to the world of ideal beauty".[22] Earl Wasserman
essentially agrees with Finney, but he extended his summation of the poem to incorporate the themes of Keats's
Mansion of Many Apartments when he says, "the core of the poem is the search for the mystery, the unsuccessful
quest for light within its darkness" and this "leads only to an increasing darkness, or a growing recognition of how
impenetrable the mystery is to mortals."[23] With these views in mind, the poem recalls Keats's earlier view of
pleasure and an optimistic view of poetry found within his earlier poems, especially Sleep and Poetry, and rejects
them.[24]

This loss of pleasure and incorporation of death imagery lends the poem a dark air, which connects Ode to a
Nightingale with Keats' other poems that discuss the demonic nature of poetic imagination, including Lamia.[25] In
the poem, Keats imagines the loss of the physical world and sees himself dead--he uses an abrupt, almost brutal word
for it--as a "sod" over which the nightingale sings. The contrast between the immortal nightingale and mortal man,
sitting in his garden, is made all the more acute by an effort of the imagination.[26]

In his poetry, Keats proposed the contemplation of beauty as a way of delaying the inevitability of death. Although
we must die eventually, we can choose to spend our time alive in aesthetic revelry, looking at beautiful objects and
landscapes. Keats's speakers contemplate urns (“Ode on a Grecian Urn”), books (“On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer” [1816], “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again” [1818]), birds (“Ode to a Nightingale”), and
stars (“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art” [1819]). Unlike mortal beings, beautiful things will never die
but will keep demonstrating their beauty for all time. Keats explores this idea in the first book of Endymion (1818).
The speaker in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” envies the immortality of the lute players and trees inscribed on the ancient
vessel because they shall never cease playing their songs, nor will they ever shed their leaves. He reassures young
lovers by telling them that even though they shall never catch their mistresses, these women shall always stay
beautiful. The people on the urn, unlike the speaker, shall never stop having experiences. They shall remain
permanently depicted while the speaker changes, grows old, and eventually dies.
Departures and Reveries
 In many of Keats's poems, the speaker leaves the real world to explore a transcendent, mythical, or aesthetic realm. At the
end of the poem, the speaker returns to his ordinary life transformed in some way and armed with a new understanding.
Often the appearance or contemplation of a beautiful object makes the departure possible. The ability to get lost in a reverie,
to depart conscious life for imaginative life without wondering about plausibility or rationality, is part of Keats's concept of
negative capability. In “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art,” the speaker imagines a state of “sweet unrest” (12) in
which he will remain half-conscious on his lover's breast forever. As speakers depart this world for an imaginative world, they
have experiences and insights that they can then impart into poetry once they've returned to conscious life. Keats explored
the relationship between visions and poetry in “Ode to Psyche” and “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Themes
 With "Ode to a Nightingale," Keats's speaker begins his fullest and deepest exploration of the themes of creative expression
and the mortality of human life. In this ode, the transience of life and the tragedy of old age ("where palsy shakes a few, sad, last
gray hairs, / Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies") is set against the eternal renewal of the nightingale's fluid
music ("Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!"). The speaker reprises the "drowsy numbness" he experienced in "Ode on
Indolence," but where in "Indolence" that numbness was a sign of disconnection from experience, in "Nightingale" it is a sign of
too full a connection: "being too happy in thine happiness," as the speaker tells the nightingale. Hearing the song of the
nightingale, the speaker longs to flee the human world and join the bird. His first thought is to reach the bird's state through
alcohol--in the second stanza, he longs for a "draught of vintage" to transport him out of himself. But after his meditation in the
third stanza on the transience of life, he rejects the idea of being "charioted by Bacchus and his pards" (Bacchus was the
Roman god of wine and was supposed to have been carried by a chariot pulled by leopards) and chooses instead to embrace,
for the first time since he refused to follow the figures in "Indolence," "the viewless wings of Poesy."

"Ode to a Nightingale" the nightingale itself is a symbol of the continuity or immortality of Nature as contrasted with the utter mortality of man. Nature is always changing

and yet forever the same\

In the beginning of the poem, the narrator sits listening to the song of the nightingale. He realizes as he listens that the bird is immortal as
opposed to the mortal life of human beings. "Her 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" (III 25). In contrast, as the narrator tells the reader in Stanza 7, the nightingale has
been singing the same songs for generation upon generation. The use of the word generation suggests the passage of human time and the
cycle of life and death. He has sung so much throughout history that he has become immortal. The very same song was heard by emperor
and clown, by Ruth (a figure from the Old Testament) and by fairies. All of these people have heard the very same singing as the narrator is
hearing right now, and some of these people have achieved an immortality of their own, something close to the nightingale. In this, he
addresses the immortality of nature's cycle of change.

Other conflicts appear in Keats's poetry:

 transient sensation or passion / enduring art

 dream or vision / reality
 joy / melancholy
 the ideal / the real
 mortal / immortal
 life / death
 separation / connection
 being immersed in passion / desiring to escape passion

The bird is a microcosm of everlasting nature. All nature is contained in it, and nature doesn't die. In this sense
the nightingale, too, is immortal. This is what Keats means through the rest of the stanza. He talks about all
others from the past who have also heard the nightingale's song. 3rd - The nightingale is also both him and his
poem. He "transformed" himself into the bird in stanzas 3&4 (at least temporarily). So since the bird is immortal,
he is also immortal, or at least part of him is; call it "the soul" or whatever. His transformation into the bird is
achieved through the poem itself ("...on the viewless wings of Poesy"). The poem is the transformative device,
and it, too, is immortal. All true poetry is and Keats is acknowledging that here. Finally, it's worth noting that he
talks about the bird's immortality just after he considers how nice death would be for him. It's only at the end of
stanza 6 that he decides he'd rather not die; he'd rather live to hear the immortal song of the immortal bird.
Perhaps he hears the sound of his own immortality woven into the themes of the birdsong. Keats was amazing.
I feel, that in these stanzas, Keats has written about himself. He has not built a character, because he, himself is
the character. I feel that this poem, is a monologue of his own life, and the nightingale speaks for him. In other
words, he's chosen a nightingale as the medium to say his words. This, I feel has added a certain beauty to this
poem.

In John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”, the central theme is when a man wishes he had the strong music beauty of the singing
nightingale with out the wine, which creates a sense of loss. In the early stages of this poem the man falls into a reverie while
listening to a nightingale sing. He begins by having feelings of both joy and pain. He states “Tasting of Flora and the country
green, Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth.” (Pg. 605) In this stanza he describes the country as green, giving it
character and a sense of beauty. If he had described the country as brown or yellow there might have been a different effect on
the reader. He associates dance with song, which together produce pleasure or otherwise noted in this poem as “mirth”. During
this stanza he is in his imaginary world.

The poem explores the themes of nature, transience and mortality, the latter being the most personal to Keats, making a
direct reference to the death in 1818 of his brother, Tom.

John Keats is arguably the favorite of all of the Romantic poets and his work is still important to the 21st century. The
relevance and abundance of his work in relation to the brevity of his life is fascinating to those who study him. Keats only
started writing at 19, but he died at 26 of tuberculosis, just as his mother and brother died before him. If one looks at Keats'
poems, it is almost as if he knew he was bound to die. The themes of his work often centered on the fleeting nature of life, the
human being’s struggle to come to terms with our mortality, and the never-ending quest for Truth, Beauty and contentment.
The poetic devices Keats chose to utilize and the formal elements present in the odes, such as tone, sound devices and
metrical structure help to emphasize the theme of the transitory nature of beauty which is present in them. All the odes are
relevant, though “Ode to a Nightingale” is the most interesting to examine, since, as M. Robertson claims, it is the most
personal of all the odes.

Robertson gives a brief explication of the odes in his edition of Keats’ last volume of poetry. He says that “Ode to a
Nightingale” was the first to be written of the odes and that Keats was personally troubled by the themes discussed in the
poem. The line most often referenced from “Ode to a Nightingale” is “Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;”
from section 3, a direct reference to the death of Keats’ brother. The dramatic situation of this poem is deceptively simple. The
speaker is so disheartened by a world so seemingly lacking in beauty that he is seduced by the nightingale’s timeless song, and
wishes to escape with the bird to a place where beauty reigns instead of despair and tragedy. However, once the speaker
realizes that he must wake from his trance, he wishes for death instead of a return to a life where the true nature of beauty is
out of his grasp.

General points:

In this ode, Keats focuses on immediate sensations and emotions

At the start, the bird is represented as real.  As the poem progresses, it becomes a symbol.  Possible symbols are:

- freedom (a bird can fly away)

- pure joy

- the artist (bird’s voice = self expression)

- Imagination (a journey)

- the beauty of nature

- the ideal
Ode To A Nightingale is a characteristically romantic poem. While evoking the immortality of the nightingale, the
poem underlines the fact that nature is always dying but always alive, forever changing but always the same.

The forest scene is Romantically picturesque without being really pictorial: one does not visualise it, but its
composition can be described in visual metaphor. Its unity is a matter of blending, with objects softened and
distanced by the veil of darkness, which itself shades off into moonlight filtered through forest leaves. The moonlight,
a symbol of imagination, intermingling with darkness evokes the enchantment of mystery, the wondrous secret just
out of reach.

The imagery is particular and sensuous, but not highly visual. Hawthorn, eglantine, violets and musk rose are
important chiefly for their pastoral associations. "The grass, the thicket and the fruit tree wild" have tactual and
plastic qualities. The "fast-fading violets" are invested with organic sensation through empathy by being "covered up
in leaves" and the associations of the musk rose include taste and sound. As in stanza 2, the theme is fullness, but
with an added poignancy and complexity from the introduction of darkness and death. The generous fertility of
Nature is inseparable from the grave.

In stanza 7, the nightingale is a universal and undying voice: the voice of nature, of imaginative sympathy and
therefore of an ideal Romantic poetry. The world of Nature is a cycle of change; "the seasonable month", "the coming
musk-rose", and consequently can seem fresh and immortal, like the bird whose song seems to be its spirit. The bird
lacks man's self-consciousness. It is not alienated from nature, but wholly merged in nature. Such considerations
suggest the sense in which the nightingale is "immortal." The bird shares in the immortality of nature. Keats makes
perfectly clear the sense in which the nightingale is immortal: it is in harmony with its world; not, as man is, in
competition with his.

 Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn belong to a series of poems written by John Keats in
1819. Although both poems do not have a plot in common, they share, at least, a theme: the
immortality of art vs. the ephemerality of human life.

In the Ode To A Nightingale, reference is made to the song of the nightingale. The song aroused in Keats a longing to escape
with it from this world of sorrows to the world of ideal beauty. This is one of the most fantastic aspects of the poem.

The poet then contrasts the mortality of human life with the immortality of the nightingale. He argues that the nightingale's
song has not changed for years. It is the same song heard by all the emperors and also by the miserable Ruth. He takes the
song as a symbol of permanence. Generations pass, yet the song of the nightingale continues from age to age. It is mind-
blowing to read that Keats considers the song of the nightingale as permanent and endless.
However, the most mesmerising fact about Keats is that he always comes back to reality. He never misses to return to real life.
Till now he was living in his imagination but he knows that ultimately, he has to face the truth. As the song of the nightingale
becomes more distinct, his imagination which had carried him to the forest also declines and the poetic vision also fades. He
has to move back to the common world of reality. The ode which opens on a note of ecstasy, ends on a note of frustration. He
ends the stanza by asking "...was it a vision, ...Do i wake or sleep?"
The poem is a beautiful example of lyrical poetry and has been written in a very superb and magnificent style. It undoubtedly
displays Keats's power as a master of poetic language at its highest. It also reveals Keats's sense of tragedy of human life in
general and his sense of personal suffering in particular. There is always this desire to escape from the realities of life and go
far away where beauty is long-lived.
But life with all its "fever","fret" and "weariness" has to be lived .

The poet begins by describing his current listless mental state, contrasting it with the beautiful and carefree song of
the nightingale. He wishes for freedom from earthly cares and longs for the fairyland of art, represented in the poem
by the nightingale. Life on earth is too full of sorrow, despair, and disappointment, and the only escape from it is
through poetry.

Death, says the poet, has long been a temptation for him, and the bird’s song temporarily strengthens his death wish.
He admits that the quiet of the grave seems preferable to life on earth. But just as he is about to abandon himself to
the nightingale’s song, the poet realizes that in death he would be unable to hear the bird’s song.
In “Ode to a Nightingale,” the speaker hears and wistfully reflects upon the “full-throated ease” of the nightingale’s song,
which has the power to revive his dulled senses. The contrast of vivid reminders of life and contrasted with images of
inevitable decay and disintegration throughout the poem; this juxtaposition is used to explore the vagaries of the muse and
the creative process, another important concern of the Romantic poets. Like life, fancy and the imagination are fleeting and
ephemeral; encountering the creative process is likened to a struggle, after which the poet, spent, must reluctantly return to
his “sole self.” The fleeting encounter with the muse is over so quickly it seems unreal, and the speaker questions whether it
even happened at all, or if it was merely a “a vision, or a waking dream.” Still, the potency of the creative process is
demonstrated by the very existence of the poem itself, and the poet is transformed by his melancholy encounter with the
sublime.  

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oblivious, s song, world of beauty, pure joy, sooth, anguish, progresses, longing, morality, realities,
gradually, promises, attempts,

Many people recognize the nightingale's song, most often heard at night. Here are other facts about the song:

 The name nightingale means “night songstress."

 Though the female is often credited with the beautiful song, it’s the male nightingale that sings.
 Like some other species of thrushes, the nightingale is able to produce two notes at the same time.
 The song isn’t always the same—the extensive repertoire is divided into “whistle” songs and “non-whistle”
songs.
 The species sings by day as well as by night—it seems to sing less during the day because other birdsong and
noises drown it out.
 In urban areas, where the birds compete with traffic and other noises, they sing louder.
 Common Nightingales, like many other species, sing actively at dawn, a behavior thought to be connected
with defense of nesting territory

The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen often touch on the subject of death, but the ones that address the subject
directly are among his most pious and sentimental, better suited to Victorian tastes than they are to ours today. One of
the more interesting of them is The Story of a Mother, in which Death knocks on a woman's door and takes her
beloved son away. The distraught woman determines to follow, and makes her long, weary way to Death's realm.
There, she finds a greenhouse filled to the bursting with flowers and trees of all kinds — each one representing a
single life somewhere on earth. When Death arrives, she tricks him into giving back the life of her son — but Death
shows her the future and the terrible life her child will lead. She knows then that his death is god's will, and a mercy,
and she is at peace.

Andersen's very best tale about death has deservedly become a classic. The Nightingale is the story of a Chinese
Emperor and a bird with an exquisite song. The Emperor dotes on the bird for awhile, then replaces the humble,
faithful creature with a golden mechanical replicate . . .until the night that Death comes for him, squatting heavily on
his chest:

Opening his eyes he saw it was Death who sat there, wearing the Emperor's crown, handling the Emperor's gold
sword, and carrying the Emperor's silk banner. Among the folds of the great velvet curtains there were strangely
familiar faces. Some were horrible, others gentle and kind. They were the Emperor's deeds, good and bad, who came
back to him now that Death sat on his heart.

"Don't you remember?" they whispered one after the other. "Don't you remember—?" And they told him of things
that made the cold sweat run on his forehead.

"No, I will not remember!" said the Emperor. "Music, music, sound the great drum of China lest I hear what they
say!"

But nothing will drown out the whispers. The Emperor's mechanical bird sits silent, for there is no one to wind it up.
But then the real nightingale arrives, having heard wind of the emperor's plight. He sings so beautifully that the
phantoms fade and even Death stops to listen. The nightingale bargains for the emperor's life, and Death departs.