That Time Keats Messed Up

Rewriting Ode to a Nightingale

Ode to a Nightingale is a perfect poem... almost. Sadly, Keats fat-fingered two lines right up front:

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 thine 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.

These lines trip me up every time I read the poem, and I assume, unless you are a close-reading machine, they tripped you up just now. I typically have to re-read them before they settle into sense:

I feel numb and bad
Like I just tried to poison myself
My sad state is not caused by envy of you, nightingale,
In fact I am happy that you're happy
That you're singing your heart out

I see what Keats is up to here. He's telegraphing the theme of the poem, how the nightingale’s happy chirping blends into his sadness and and how ecstasy can blur into a death wish.

But the lines are just too hard to parse: What is "it" in "'Tis"? Who is "being too happy"? What does "That" in "That thou" refer to? In a poem of hallucinatory lucidity, this is just a fuck-up.

Let's fix it. I think the telegraphing is superfluous, so let's simplify the sense:

I just tried to poison myself
but I hear your happy song
and it makes me happy
that you're singing your heart out

The new lines:

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:
Until thy quavers tune a happy note,
Awakening happiness on happiness,
While thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

I visit the House of Keats every year. We owe the guy so much: gratitude, honor, and the occasional spackle job.

Can you do better? I’ll bet you can. Show me in the comments. If yours is a better fix, I’ll use it here.