Keats mentions poisonous trees and death-related things at the beginning of the poem, Ode ton Melancholy, such as Lethe which according to Greek Mythology is a river whose water when drunk makes the dead’s souls forget their life on earth, the death-moth, and the downy owl (I found on the internet that owls represents not only wisdom but also doom and death). And at the same time, he advises not to be close to those dreadful things because shade, which I think also symbolizes death, “will drown the wakeful anguish of the soul”. At first, I thought it was contradictory because I considered removing the wakeful pain of the soul as a good thing. But then, after some thinking, I realized that since this poem is about melancholy, and people with depression more easily take self-destructive actions, the poet intended to make people aware that if they surround themselves with negative things, they will eventually choose to kill themselves in order to permanently eliminate the anguish of their soul.
Then the poet goes on to provide suggestions to overcome melancholy (“Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, … feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes”). However, at the end of the poem, Keats hints the impossibility of living in permanent pleasure by referring that beauty, joy, and pleasure are all temporary (She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; … Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:) and the coexistence of sadness and pleasure (“in the very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine”).
I think that what Keats intended to say in this poem is very straightforward, which can be broken down into three simple sentences: 1. Don’t let depression kill you, 2. Enjoy the temporary entertainments if they help you relieve, and 3. However, never forget that sadness will always be there.
Additionally, while reading the Ode to a Nightingale, I found some relevance between the two odes. In the Ode to a Nightingale, Keats speaks of the sadness of the world around him (the whole 3rd stanza: “Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget … Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow”), and the means he took to avoid the sadness (the 6th stanza: “for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death”). Inferring from “for many a time”, I realized that he repeatedly took self-destructive measures as the means to avoid the sadness. And at the very end of the poem, he finds himself unable to distinguish reality from imagery (the last stanza: “Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:– do I wake or sleep?”). Consequently, I assumed that Keats as a person who experienced firsthand the harmful effect of melancholy wrote the poem, “Ode on Melancholy”, to admonish people.
