We can't be sure of what John Keats had in mind when he wrote "Ode on a Grecian Urn", but we know that he was inspired by its beauty. It is believed he wrote the poem in 1819 after visiting an exhibition of Greek artifacts. Of all of Keats' work, this poem has probably generated the most discussion and critical comment.

The poem is a type of ode, an ancient form originally intended as a song, and there are references to musical instruments and melodies throughout it. Odes normally adhered to rigid structural patterns, but by Keats' time they had morphed into poems that lyrically meditate on a single object or condition, with less concern to structure.

This is a poem that you experience along with the author. You are drawn into the story and feel part of it. You're a voyeur into the lives of the people depicted on the urn and you share their moments and their music. They come alive for us.

Keats is entranced by the figures and scenes presented on the urn. As he turns it and studies them, time and space collide into a single moment, captured, and unchangeable, for all time. Keats must have studied the urn for a very long time. He is haunted by it. He wants to know who the figures are, whether they are men or gods and what led up to their portrayal on the urn?

Keats can only guess at the stories and only know the characters as they are depicted, captured in time on the urn; they have no past, no future, just a glorious now that goes on forever. They will never change. It's spring, and it will always be spring; the leaves will never turn color and fall. The young maiden and her lover will never kiss. That unrequited love is sweet, protected through eternity on the urn. It will never grow old and it can never fade.

There is something about the kiss that can never be, that captures our imaginations. It's always perfect in our dreams. It stands as a possibility, not as an improbable event that will never happen. We imagine what it will feel like. We are hopeful. We know we never have to worry about actually experiencing it, because we can't. It stirs up our own romantic feelings about that wonderful spring in our youth when anything was possible and the future lay so magnificently in front of us. We hold onto those moments, sometimes deep in our memory banks, but we bring them out when we need them, to remind us of that sweet anticipation.

As we read through the poem, we feel the elation that Keats must have felt.

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