Instructions
There are seven questions in the first stanza. To a certain extent they are answered in the next stanza and in the remainder of the poem but what function do they perform here?
Ode on a Grecian Urn
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-fringed 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?
Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard
Are sweeter; Therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d
Pipe to the spirit Look at ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss.
Though winning near the goal- yet do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love and she be fair.
John Keats