John Keats - Ode to a Nightingale

Keats writes ode to a nightingale in 1819 with some other Ode's poems. I liked this one the best because it has a lot of symbolism and seems to be an inspiration from other poems and stories, but also he draws from within is own experiences at his own house!
In Nightingale, Keats draws upon the birds that have sung to anyone and everyone that have heard him. In stanza 7 it reads:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown.
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

I like the idea here that even though the same bird did not sing to clowns, Kings, Keats, or the biblical Ruth; but the same song they sing has been around that long. This is not possible for a human, since we are in touch with our own indivuality and thus our own eventual demise. Nightingales are the opposite to us in this respect, no matter what age, they sing to and inspire us no matter what bird is singing. As we have traced time and memory back to Ruth, biblically, and Kings and up to Keats, we have a change in culture and religion and ways of thought. But the nightingale has kept its same song all this time.

In stanza 8:

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

The bird has flown away, and Keats is upset, to say the least. The imagery of the bird flying away, deceiving a mythical creature, the elf, and going to the next person to inspire, yet not knowing he is going to be doing that or that he has just come from a place that will make his song immortal in poem. Keats asks himself if he is awake or asleep, dreaming about a message or vision, or if this is all real. the experience was very surreal for him and he has a hard time believing it was a coincidence.

I, myself, believe in divine intervention and that there is a master plan for all of us. But the nightingale in this poem, and in general, do not think of such things, they have a natural habit and kind of do the same thing over and over, unlike us, humans, that seem to want to be different, but yet have the same fate as the nightingale, death.