ODE ON MELANCHOLY

 "no, no, go not to Lethe”

I believe that Keats seems to be advising people not to give up when you are melancholic or sad. Don’t try to go to Lethe river in the underworld in order to forget evertythings that happens in your life. In this picture we can see how all this people is trying to forget, and escaping reality.

“make not your rosary of yew-berries”

The rosary is used in the Christians religion to pray, he dosent want people to loose fait and create a symbol of death with it. 

“sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud”

he makes a relation between a weeping cloud and melancholy. How melancholy all of a sudden appears once again and traps yourseld. Makes you be part of this gloomy atmosphere that you cant get out of. it trapps you. 

“ that fosters the droop headed flowers all”

 Everything, even nature, its affected by melancholy. but the droop headed flowers evokes the sense of weakness and death, but at the same time the rain brings them life and enrichs them with what they need to survive. so there is a contradiction in this image. 

“and Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips”

I believe that this line represents the fact that joy comes once in a while, and even whren you get to be happy, you have the sense that this moment its about to dissapear and to leave you alone once again with the melancholy. the fact that it says that the hand is actually never at his lips expreses the idea that actually joy its not fully experienced. 

“Can burst Joys grape agains his palate fine”

Here we can perceive the synasthetic image. Having the image of the grape itself, the texture as it burst, and the taste of it in your palate. How Joy can be squished and take advantage of this moment of happiness.