so far as Keats can
compass it, and (e) eminently well-suited to its subject, which
is a carven urn, gracious but severe of outline; a moment of joy
caught by the sculptor and arrested, for time to perpetuate; yet
--and this is the point of the Ode--conveying a sense that
innocent gaiety is not only its own excuse, but of human things
one of the few eternal--and eternal just because it is joyous and
fleeting.

(3) Then we go back and compare this kind of quiet immortal
beauty with the passionate immortality hymned in the "Nightingale
Ode"

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down...

with all the rest of that supreme stanza: from which (with some
passages my reading supplies to illustrate the difference) we
fall to contrasting the vibrating thrill of the "Nightingale"
with the happy grace of the "Grecian Urn" and, allowing each to
be appropriate, dispute for a while, perhaps, over the merits of
classical calm and romantic thrill.

(4) From this we proceed to examine the Ode in detail line by
line: which examination brings up a whole crowd of questions,
such as

(a) We have a thought enounced in the first stanza. Does the Ode
go on to develop and amplify it, as an Ode should? Or does
Pegasus come down again and again on the prints from which he
took off? If he do this, and the action of the Ode be dead and
unprogressive, is the defect covered by beauty of language? Can
such defect ever be so covered?

(b) Lines 15 and 16 anticipate lines 21-24, which are saying the
same thing and getting no forwarder.

(c) We come to the lines

What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?

with the answering lines

And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

and we note Sir Sidney Colvin's suggestion that this breaks in
upon an arrest of art as though it were an arrest on reality: and
remember that he raised a somewhat similar question over "The
Nightingale"; and comparing them, discuss truth of emotion
against truth of reality.

We come to the last stanza and lament 'O Attic shape! Fair
attitude' for its jingle: but note how the poet recovers himself
and brings the whole to a grand close.

I have, even yet, mentioned but a few of the points. For one, I
have omitted its most