"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 thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease."
After I looked up hemlock and opiate I came to the realization that this guy is on drugs. He is using the drugs to slip into a world of ignorance. He wants to be like the nightingale and not have a care in the world. He states that he is not jealous of the nightingale's bliss, but that he would like to join the nightingale in its happiness. Like sharing the wealth.
I do not really agree with the use of drugs to help us forget the world. I think that he needs to deal with the problems of life and try to learn from them. We all need have to deal with life and its many dilemmas. Dealing with the hard stuff is the only way that we will can ever learn to grow up.
P.S. I commented on Anna Rhodes' "A Bird, a Dog, and Humankind"
I'm not really sure if Keats was on opiates in this poem; note that he says 'as though of some hemlock I had drunk.' Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but it seems to me that Keats is lulled into this state of thought upon hearing the nightingale's song. I believe he is envious of the nightingale, though I'm not sure why exactly he envies it. Is it because of its blissful state or could it have something to do with the immortality of the nightingale's song? I'm not sure myself, but I don't necessarily thing that this poem doesn't mean he isn't dealing with it--I think his writing is a way of dealing with it. Sometimes we just have to honestly weep, as Job did, over our troubles. He wished for death. I don't think that is wrong until it starts getting put into practice.
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