In drear nighted December

• Structure


  • three-stanza poem which is separated into sets of eight lines, or octaves. These octaves all adhere to a specific and consistent rhyme scheme. They follow a pattern of, ababcccd. Variants of this pattern repeat within the three stanzas, with the first and third lines rhyming in the first and second stanzas and the eighth line rhyming throughout in all three stanzas. 
  • The poet has chosen to structure the poem in this way to allow for a feeling of continuity. The reader will come to expect a certain amount of repetition and consistency as they move from line to line.
• Themes

  • Memory
  • Pain of loss
  • Nature v humanity
  • Consistency v unpredictability
• "Thy branches ne'er remember their green felicity"

  • Tree is personified
  • The winter is so deeply established that the tree has ‘forgotten’ that it was once green.
  • The meaning of this is open to speculation, but it could indicate that harsh times can become embedded in our existence, so that ‘felicity’ (happiness) is too distant a memory. It could also be a metaphor for the forgotten perfection of the biblical Garden of Eden, Genesis 2:8-17, before man’s Fall.
  • Could be a metaphor for indicating harsh times that can become embedded in our existence
• "Happy happy tree"


  • adjective ‘happy’ is juxtaposed with its antithesis, ‘drear-nighted’, in the first line - instant shift in tone and the repetition of ‘happy’ emphasises this.
  • The abruptness of the change and the repetition raise questions - Is this a paradoxical sinister note; that the second ‘happy’ neutralises the first? Or maybe the ignorance of the tree is a metaphorical hint that humans may be too complacent and accepting of negativity.
  • The poet personifies the tree and the brook, a characteristic feature of Keats' poetry, investing the natural world with power and significance.
• "But with a sweet forgetting,"


  • ‘sweet’ and ‘forgetting’ is significant, and may be an oxymoron if one assumes that forgetting in most circumstances isn’t sweet.
  • The idyllic nature of this stanza is a veneer; the narrator implies that something suppressed needs to be remembered. The spring time should be longed-for. Is being happy with lifeless winter a sign of human spiritual negation?
• "They stay their crystal fretting Never, never petting About the frozen time"

  • ‘Crystal fretting’ - frozen bubbles, the word ‘stay’ = ‘remain’ or ‘be unchanged’.
  • ‘Never’ is repeated - same emphasis given to ‘happy’ — suggesting the lack of complaint is a fault. ‘petting’ = criticising - speaker is identifying the human impulse to look forward, to anticipate Spring, but that this is lacking.
  • verb frozen = both nature and humans are trapped in the cyclical nature of their existences. Time is frozen - nothing can change our existential traits.
• "But were there ever any writh'd not of passed joy?"

  • So girls and boys are not like unremembering trees and brooks.
  • The verb ‘writhed’ is a perfect choice to express grief in one succinct word.
  • The speaker is now saying that there is a good reason to forget, given the sadness involved in transient happiness.
• "where there is none to heal it nor numbered sense to steel it, was never said in rhyme"


  • This means that denial is a way of coping with ‘passed joy’, that if it can’t be remedied or healed it is best to block it from consciousness. In other words, to become numb and no longer vulnerable to pain.
  • ‘steel’ is ambiguous. Is this ‘turn to steel’ or harden so that feelings become insentient? Or it could be a synonym meaning ‘steal’ in the sense that the numbness can take away consciousness and pain.
  • Keats joins a venerable tradition in saying in rhyme that what he’s saying was never said before.