John Keats' Ode to a Nightingale 1820

In June 1820 John Keats' third collection of poems was published: Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems. This collection included some of his most famous and beautiful poems including Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to Psyche, Ode to a Grecian Urn and  the Eve of St Agnes.

Keats died the following year, in 1821, at the age of 25. The poetry published in 1820 is amongst the most beautiful and sensuous as any published in the English language.

The poetry is full of vivid imagery which was to, later, inspire Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is Tennyson who worked hard to secure Keats' legacy for posterity.

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 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....