The poem fuses "real melancholy" with "imaginary relief" to adequately express the double life of human experience. The poem’s movement through the different modes is achieved through a loose stylistic perfection; a dream-like experience of intoxication done with intense canto regularity. Ode to a Nightingale not only waxes and wanes between these realms, it vibrates deeply with a true look at what Keats in his life has endured, and foreshadows the death to come. …showed first 75 words of 1256 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1256 total…adieu! speaking of it as a deceiving elf. Perhaps he feels he was deceived by the song into believing it was one of happiness yet now he realizes the truth, that it is really a plaintive anthem. As the nightingale flies away past the near meadows, over the still stream….[and becomes] buried deep in the next valley-glades, he wonders if this was just a vision, or a waking dream….do I wake or sleep?