"Ode on Indolence"

The figures of Love, Ambition and Poesy grow less distinct throughout the poem—first they are “figures” (1), then “shadows” (11), later they becomes “ghosts” (51), and by the end they are “phantoms” (59). In this way they do “Fade softly” (55) throughout the poem---by the end it is believable that the speaker can tell them to “Vanish” (59); now that they are only phantoms, they might (the imagery of the clouds helps with this, as well). The slow fading seems to align with the “drowsy” (36), “dim” (42), “dreamy” (56) feel of the poem. It also has a kind of cyclical/repetitive feel with the motion of the turning urn the central event. For the first three sections the turning is almost aligned with the stanza shifts, as well---in the third stanza it is the “third time” (21) they pass.

There’s also just a ton of repetition in the poem that kind of makes it feel more circular or like it’s closing in on itself—dreams are mentioned a lot, and other images repeat—the flowers, the clouds---words are repeated, too—“shifted” (6, 8) and “pass’d” (5, 21) to “passing” (21) and then “faded” (23, 31) to “fade” (55). The repeated words definitely add to the dreamlike sense and give the poem a kind of quiet pulsing that might put one to sleep. In a sense sleep is a kind of forgetting--- it seems this is what the speaker is trying to do in the poem with the gradual fading of the figures. The overall arc of the poem pulses in a way too: the speaker starts out “benumb’d” (17) to the figures, and “Unhaunted” (20), then he sees and recognizes the figures and then they fade again (maybe as if sleeping, then waking up, and falling back asleep). It is interesting that he laments that they “did…not melt” (19) before they could haunt him when the poem then goes on to demonstrate the way that they do, in a sense, “melt” or “fade,” at least.

Perhaps this suggests that it is the writing of the poem itself that gives the speaker the power to banish the figures. He is forced out of his idleness by the need to write the poem and then it is only at the end that he can embrace again his “idle spright” (59). The final footnote has a quote from Keats: “the thing I have most enjoyed this year has been writing an ode to Indolence” ----This introduces a kind of paradox--- it is about idleness, but the indolence is the inspiration for the poem. The experience of it is the reason the poem exists, and thus a part of the work that went into the poem—which means that it isn’t really indolence anymore, though it is.

The way the speaker describes the figures throughout the poem is interesting, too---they  have “bowed necks,” are “serence” and “placid”---as though mocking the peacefulness that the speaker wants to have, or even did have before he noticed them. 

And another note on the central image of the turning urn: it is interesting that the speaker only mentions that the urn is turning—that someone is turning it---but doesn’t give any real identity to this actor by describing the action passively. Even the first line about what the speaker himself sees--“One morn before me were three figures seen”—is passive, which sets up the inaction of the poem. That someone needs to turn the urn—that Love, Ambition, and Poesy need an urn, even—suggests the speaker realizes that they need a vessel to work through, that they cannot exist independent of a person who loves/has ambition/writes poetry. Still, that he has someone else directly interacting with the urn (or just doesn’t explicitly interact with it) shows the disconnect he feels---“they were strange to me” (9). At the same time, he later realizes the he does know them, so perhaps this disconnect is something he is trying to force. He does appear to take more agency/demonstrate his power over them closer to the end of the poem as he tells them to vanish. At the same time  this control he takes to reclaim his idleness in a sense means that he isn't idle anymore.