The poem describes the speaker's happiness upon listening to a dryad singing joyously in a forest grove. In the first stanza, the speaker feels as though they have drunk hemlock or opiates, and their senses are numb with drowsiness and pain, yet they find joy in the dryad's happiness. In the second stanza, the speaker wishes to drink wine that would allow them to fade away into the forest with the dryad, leaving the physical world behind.
2. Key words:
⢠Aches feel
⢠Hemlock a poison drink
⢠Lethe-wards imaginary river of Greeks
⢠Dryad a female tree spirit in Greek mythology
⢠Throated ease in a happy loud voice
⢠Vintage a name of high quality wine
⢠Hippocrene the name of fountain
3. Stanza no 1:
⢠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 happinessâ
That thou, light-wingĂŠd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
7. Stanza no 2:
⢠O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvĂŠd 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-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dimâ
8. I wish I had some
wine!
Iâm sure you can say
it is better than that.
9.
10. The urge to leave
the physical world
That I might drink, and leave the
world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the
forest dimâ