In John Keats" "Ode to a Nightingale", the central theme is when a man wishes he had the strong music beauty of the singing nightingale with out the wine, which creates a sense of loss. In the early stages of this poem the man falls into a reverie while listening to a nightingale sing. He begins by having feelings of both joy and pain. He states "Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth." (Pg. 605) In this stanza he describes the country as green, giving it character and a sense of beauty. If he had described the country as brown or yellow there might have been a different effect on the reader. He associates dance with song, which together produce pleasure or otherwise noted in this poem as "mirth". During this stanza he is in his imaginary world. .
In the third stanza his awareness of the real world pulls him back from the imagined world of drink-joy that he was in. He feels that beauty cannot keep its lustrous tone without his world of vintage.
In the fourth stanza he cries out "Away! Away! For I will fly to thee." (Pg. 606) Showing that he has returned to his fantasy but also stating that he is rejecting the wine and he is going to use "the viewless wings of Poesy" (Pg. 606) to join this fantasy bird. He compares this experience to that of dullness. This stanza closes with the man in complete darkness yet he is unhappy nor is he infatuated with the situation. .
He continues to sit in darkness in the fifth stanza, which makes the man rely on his, other senses. He speaks of the nightingale singing of summer, and the progression of the seasons. He might have chosen spring to summer to show a new beginning rather then fall to winter, which would incur death and decay.
Yet in stanza six the man begins to distance himself from the nightingale and yearns for death instead which he imagines only as joyful, pain-free, and a way to merge with the birds song.