"As though a tongueless nightingale should swell / Her throat in vain, and die, heart -stifled, in her dell"
— Keats, John (1795-1821)
Author
Work Title
Date
1820
Metaphor
"As though a tongueless nightingale should swell / Her throat in vain, and die, heart -stifled, in her dell"
Metaphor in Context
Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart -stifled, in her dell.
(ll. 199-207, p. 235)
Its little smoke, in pallid moonshine, died:
She clos'd the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No uttered syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her throat in vain, and die, heart -stifled, in her dell.
(ll. 199-207, p. 235)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS
Citation
Keats, John. Complete Poems. Ed. Jack Stillinger. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Date of Entry
09/22/2003
