Keats's preoccupation with the escapism he pursues is always tinged with the actuality of life, with the unmoveable and steady awareness of the "inextricable mixed joy and sorrow of human experience" (Pettet 1957:355). In stanza three there follows a contrasted vision where Keats leaves behind all of mankind's tribulations in favour of this transient place of happiness which has been invoked by the Nightingale "Away! Away for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But not on the viewless wings of Poesy". This said, the invocations Keats uses to a friendly death follow him as he is transported onto a higher plane of consciousness. Keats has been "half in love with easeful death", and even through his rapturous praise of the Nightingale shows that this death would be seemingly more welcome than ever. Keats presents an image to the reader for their general recognition (Holderness 1988:94). As readers, we can appreciate and sympathise with Keats's predicament- in Keats's observable interest in the permanent release from a mundane life; he befriends the reader who can understand what it must feel like to regard death as an easeful release from care and suffering. He realises the transitory nature of human life; and by the end of stanza six recognises that the Nightingale would not cease to sing if he were to die "Still wouldst thou sing, an I have ears in vain- To thy high requiem become a sod." By this time, Keats is immortalising the bird- song rather than the song- bird (Colvin 1917:419).
Sowing the reader that he understands the contrast between the permanence of the bird song and the impermanence of human life, Keats then, with very abrupt change of mood and meaning, returns to his daily consciousness with questions that he directs at his reader. "Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music- Do I wake or sleep?" The poet attributes his mood, not to the envy of the Nightingale's song, but to the excess of happiness in it (Colvin 1917:418).