The unheard melodies of the flute-player depicted on the urn are sweeter than those actually played in our finite world. The idea is platonic: it has to deal with how can we access the ideal world of eternal abstract forms through the spirit and imagination. Perhaps that’s why the stillness of the urn holds a superior life, mainly because the youth's song is endless, "nor ever can those trees be bare" or lose their leaves, and though the lover will never reach the girl to kiss her, his love and her beauty will last forever, and they will ever be seen in such pleasure anticipation;
“She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Forever will thou love, and she be fair!”
In reality, love and beauty declines, but the love and beauty depicted on the urn will remain forever fair and fresh. The third stanza continues the same line of thought. Keats continues to depict the happiness of the urn's world where spring is permanent, where the piper's melodies are "ever new", and where love is;
“ Forever warm and still to be enjoy'd
Forever panting, and for ever young”
In the fourth stanza, the speaker attempts to think about the figures on the urn as though they were experiencing human time, imagining that their procession has an origin (the “little town”) and a destination (the “green altar”). But all he can think is that the town will forever be deserted: If these people have left their origin, they will never return to it. In this sense he confronts the permanence of art; if it is impossible to learn from the urn the ‘who’s’ and ‘where’s’ in the first stanza, it is impossible ever to know the origin and the destination of the figures on the urn in the fourth.
It is true that Keats shows a certain kind of progress in his successive attempts to engage with the urn. His redundant curiosity in the first attempt gives way to a more deeply felt identification in the second, and in the third, the speaker leaves his own concerns behind and thinks of the processional purely on its own terms, thinking of the “little town” with a real and generous feeling. But each attempt ultimately ends in failure. The third attempt fails, simply because there is nothing more to say - once the speaker confronts the silence and eternal emptiness of the little town, he has reached the limit of permanency, there is nothing more the urn can tell him. In the final stanza, the speaker presents the conclusions drawn from his three attempts to engage with the urn. He is overwhelmed by its existence outside of earthly change, with its ability to taunt him “out of thought As doth eternity”. Then there are the final lines of the poem;
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Here, Keats is referring to art and even though it has been said these lines are one of the hardest to interpret in English poetry, it has been understood that Keats knew that truth lasts and the beauty he is referring to is art itself. Emphasising that Keats believed in the permanency of art. The ode also conveys the transience of happiness;
“More happy love! More happy, happy love!”
When one reads lines such as this, you cannot help but think that the poet must have been very, very happy, and that, in fact, the tone of the poem is light and filled with joy. At first glance, the tone of the poem seems light and jovial, however, when looking deeper into the poem to find its underlying meanings, you discover that the tone of the poem is very morbid. This is because the poem has two separate levels, it has a superficial level of happiness and joy, which acts as a façade for a deeper level of morbidity and death. In the third stanza, Keats uses the word happy five times. The language of the poem is very joyous and beautiful, and it has the effect of lightening the deeper mood of the poem.
In this poem there are many references to death and sorrow. These are more difficult to find than the ‘flowery’ images and ideas, and that is why they are said to be at a deeper level. One example is the lines,
“What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?”
When first reading these lines, there is a sense of peace and tranquillity. However, these lines are really rather bleak. They talk of a depressing, barren place. Keats seems to have picked two ideas that are similar yet overtly different in that his idea about the transience of happiness is overwhelmed by his idea of the permanence of art – I think this is because he truly believes in its permanence and doesn’t just see it as a theme. ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ coveys his ideas perfectly, on the surface of it, it seems the poem is just one from his collection, yet it lets us get to know Keats on a deeper level and start to understand his nature and ideas.
