“More happy love! more happy, happy love…A burning forehead, and a parching tongue”. Explain the line

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.(Lines 25-30)
This passage is taken from John Keats’ poem ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’. It refers to the superiority of art to the reality of life. The poet is deeply impressed by the sculptural painting on the marble vase of Greece. The scenes, engraved on the surface of the urn, have no reality, yet remain much more enduring and impressive.

A scene of love-making is engraved on the marble vase. A lover is found to run after his beloved. This love, shown on the urn, will never be fulfilled. The lover, engraved on the urn, will never reach his lady-love and kiss her warmly. Yet, there is no reason for the lover to lament. Although his love has no fulfillment, as in the real world, it is free from frustration, so natural to real life. The lover will not win the lady, but he will not miss her in the manner of a real lover. His love will remain ever warm and his lady love will never grow old or lose her beauty. There will be no change in his passion of love or decay in the charm of her appearance.

This love is subjected to no decay and degeneration. It will never grow old or cold. It will remain ever new, ever full of passion and yearning. What is more, this scene of lovemaking, engraved on the urn represents thoroughly human passions and desire. The lover is justly presented with all his eagerness, restlessness, and desires. Indeed, art triumphs over life and also captures and preserves it in its moments of beauty and intensity.

The passage brings out Keats’s high conception of art as an element of imperishable beauty. The comparison, implied between art and life, is remarkably impressive and penetrative. Keats’s aesthetic creed sharply comes out here.

Also read; Keats’s Concept of Beauty as Expressed in his Odes// Beauty is truth, truth beauty

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