Situations and events that we imagine and anticipate usually supersede reality and hence the anticipation becomes the most promising and enjoyable experience of life. The images on the urn depict perfectly what Keats is expressing:.
"nor ever can those trees be bare".
"Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,.
Though winning near the goal-".
The scene on the urn is suspended in time, there is no disappointment because the trees will never lose their leaves and the lover reaching to kiss the girl will never experience suffering because:.
"She cannot fade, though hast not thy bliss,.
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!".
The couple are captured in a moment in time, they cannot move or change, nor can their feelings, so they will always be in love, for evermore lusting after each other and never losing their looks. Keats plays with the idea that this is a sort of heaven, that this moment of anticipation is ultimately more enjoyable than the disappointments that the reality of life will often bring, Though surely there is some irony that the passion in the anticipation alone is unfulfilling, that satisfaction will never be possible in such a world? Keats must feel that it is better to hope for the best than be disillusioned if reality does not prove to be all he has longed for. .
His tone is ecstatic in the third stanza, seeming almost to envy these images for their immortality:.
"More happy love! More happy, happy love!.
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd".
The passion will never grow cold, the reality will never fail to live up to anticipation as when "human passion":.
"leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,.
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue." .
Keats seem to feel that the reality of love and passion is never as ideal or beautiful as the imagination previously makes it out to be and his conclusion is therefore that it is preferable to remain in a world of expectation than be disenchanted.
