In the five odes there is naturally some diversity in the degrees of excellence. I have given their titles above in the probable (not certain) order of their composition. Considered intellectually, we might form a kind of symphony out of them, and arrange it thus--1, "Grecian Urn"; 2, "Psyche"; 3, "Autumn"; 4, "Melancholy"; 5, "Nightingale"; and, if Keats had left us nothing else, we should have in this symphony an almost complete picture of his poetic mind, only omitting, or representing deficiently, that more instinctive sort of enjoyment which partakes of gaiety. Viewing all these wondrous odes together, the predominant quality which we trace in them is an extreme susceptibility to delight, close-linked with afterthought--pleasure with pang--or that poignant sense of ultimates, a sense delicious and harrowing, which clasps the joy in sadness, and feasts upon the very sadness in joy. The emotion throughout is the emotion of beauty: beauty intensely perceived, intensely loved, questioned of its secret like the sphinx, imperishable and eternal, yet haunted (as it were) by its own ghost, the mortal throes of the human soul. As no poet had more capacity for enjoyment than Keats, so none exceeded him in the luxury of sorrow. Few also exceeded him in the sense of the one moment irretrievable; but this conception in its fulness belongs to the region of morals yet more than of sensation, and the spirit of Keats was almost an alien in the region of morals. As he himself wrote (March 1818)-- "Oh never will the prize, High reason, and the love of good and ill, Be my award!" I think it will be well to cull out of these five odes--taken in the symphonic order above noted--the phrases which constitute the strongest chords of emotion and of music. (1) "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, Pipe, to the spirit, ditties of no tone. "Human passion far above That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. (2) "Too late for antique vows, Too too late for the fond believing lyre, When holy were the haunted forest boughs, Holy the air, the water, and the fire. "Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts new-grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind. (3) "Where are the songs of spring--ay, where are they? Think not of them: thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.