Róisín Tierney – Ode on Melancholy by John Keats

I remember Michael taking us through Keats’s ‘Ode on Melancholy’ in class. He was never afraid to make it clear when he really loved a poem. For Michael, pleasure – the ‘Do you like it?’ principle – was a vital test of a poem, as important as the appreciation of any technical artistry or intellectual daring (both of which he valued highly). ‘Melancholy’ was one of those poems he enjoyed reciting by heart, often doing so at the beginning of a live reading, before launching into ‘Black Ice and Rain’, or ‘The Present’, or one of his other greatest hits.

Never afraid to inspire reverence for a favourite poem, with ‘Melancholy’, Michael took us through an account of Keats’s short life, and marvelled with us at the young man’s amazing poetic achievement in those last few years.  He impressed on us the difference between melancholy and depression: the former heightens the senses, the latter dulls them. He thoroughly shook outthis beautiful, complex poem, which many of us had enjoyed at school, and brought it alive for us again. 

Enough of reverence: Michael could be funny too. He made us all laugh when he pointed out how maddening it would actually be to be married to a man who, when you are furious with him, thinks this an appropriate response:

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

Michael died in the autumn, and on Raleigh Street my neighbours’ vine spilled over their garden wall, laden with dark clusters. I thought of the lines below, and found comfort in their repetition:

Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine…

And later that year, in Lyme Regis, I found myself reciting ‘Ode on Melancholy’ to the sea:

His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Ode on Melancholy by John Keats

I. No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

II. But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

III. She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.