Ode On a Grecian Urn

The theme in the poem is how time moves on yet the Urn is remaining unchanged and will forever be beautiful; unlike everything else that will change get older and eventually die.

The title refers to an ancient Grecian Urn that describes different scenes and different lives of people who are all entrapped in beauty, pureness, and agelessness. This poem effectively mirrors the image of a Grecian Urn Keats not only describes the physical appearance, but he also relates the symbolic meaning of the Urn as well as the images. The Urn represents, to the speaker, the concept of immortality and eternal life. The purpose of the poem is to explain that the only Truth that humans can understand is Beauty.

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,Sylvan historian, who canst thus express....

In this stanza, Keats addresses a Grecian urn, which he describes as married to quietness and "adopted" by silence and time , because the urn is unable to tell stories on its own. The urn is compared to a Sylvan historian, because they both tell stories pertaining to nature. Keats says that the urn tells stories better than he does with his poems. He wonders if the urn, decorated with leaves, depicts gods or humans. He also asks where the scenes are set - in Tempe or Arcady (places in Greece). He tries to figure out the first image on the urn, where men are chasing after women. He wants to know what the reason is.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore,..

Keats notes that the pipe music he imagines playing in the image on the urn sounds better than music in real life. He says that the piper cannot stop playing his song, just as the trees in the image cannot lose their leaves because they are a permanent part of the urn. Because of this, the piper cannot kiss his lover next to him, but that he should not be sad because neither she nor her beauty or their love can disappear either.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shedYour leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;And, happy melodist, unwearied,For ever piping songs for ever new;More happy love! more happy, happy love!For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,For ever panting, and for ever young;All breathing human passion far above,That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Keats describes the trees as happy because the images of them will never lose their leaves. He calls the piper happy because he song will not end, and neither will he love with the maiden. He says that love in real life is much different, and requires suffering - it ends with a hurting heart, as well as "A burning forehead, and a parching tongue."

"Beauty is truth, and truth is beauty."

So, whole poem is an example of personification because it describes that urn as if it were pure, throughout the poem it refer to the urn as a living being well.