After not having read it for years, I revisited Ode on a Grecian Urn last night. My take on it below: Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, / Thou foster-child of silence..." This time the strangeness of the first two lines struck me. No con...
ruminations etc.