Star Light, Star Bright

The Speaker is talking to the North Star in this poem.The North Star doesn't move around at night, which is why the speaker admires it's "stedfastness." 

Bright Star is airy and beautiful while still managing to focus on a very complicated human desire. In the very first line, the speaker tells “the Bright Star” that he wishes to be like that star. We learn the speaker’s desire without (ever) finding out who the speaker is, when he is speaking, or where he is speaking. What we do know about the speaker is that he wants to be like the bright star. In the second line of the poem, the speaker says what he doesn’t want. This is an immediate switch from desire to lack of desire. He then goes on to explain what the bright star does for the next six lines in order to emphasize what he hopes to not be like. I found this very strange at first because he unexpectedly spoke of things he wouldn’t want to have in common with the star after saying he wanted to be just like the bright star. 

In line nine the speaker reveals his true desire, the one trait he truly wants to have in common with the star is stedfastness. The speaker desires to never change and to be forever still on his lover’s breast and if he can’t, he rather die swooning over her. I find it interesting that we know nothing about the speaker, especially his placement in time, besides his desire to be unchanging like the bright star. The language the speaker uses made the timing of this poem really stand out to me. The spelling of some words are archaic and I believe uncommon in 1848. One example would be eremite. I understand that Keats probably used this word out of the respect of the rhyme scheme and music of the poem but the language still makes me question the speaker’s placement in time. Overall, I think Keats did a phenomenal job describing a complicated thought without giving much detail or background about the person who thinks that thought.