"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter. " From John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn.
The line "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter" is from John Keats' poem "Ode to a Nightingale."
Musical melodies that are heard are sweet, but the ones that are imagined are even sweeter. Therefore, continue to play, not for the pleasure of the physical ear, but to enchant the soul with songs that cannot be heard.
Sounds like an unheard oxymoron to me. [Heard sounds are sweet but those unheard are sweeter...]
According to Keats, "Heard sounds are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter". Ode on a Grecian Urn.
According to Keats, "Heard sounds are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter". Ode on a Grecian Urn.
The passage suggests that while heard music can be sweet, the idea of unheard music is even more captivating. It encourages the soft pipes to continue playing, not for the pleasure of the physical senses, but for the imagination and the mind's ear.
sweeter
sweeter
No, the word 'sweeter' is the comparative form for the adjective sweet: sweet, sweeter, sweetest To 'sweeten' is a verb: sweeten, sweetens, sweetening, sweetened. Example: I sweeten my tea with honey.
sweet, sweeter, sweetest
This means that sometimes imagination is better than the experience of the physical senses. Somewhat similar to Wordworth's "they flash upon the inward eye". Nature is best perceived inwardly, poetry is "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." It is the tension set up between the experience of the senses and the experience of the imagination. For Keats, the experience of the inward ear is superior to what one hears by the registration of sound waves upon the physical mechanism of the human ear.
Bird
sweeter