expression transcends death in Keats' view. As Wynne-Davies (760) notes, "Their death and distance is paradoxically only accentuated by Keats' ecstatic, even hectic, celebration of its artistic immortality." Keats is not the only romantic poet who views death as some form of immortality or the start of eternal existence for human beings after they leave this world.
In William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," the poet sees death as a return to a form of life that is more complete and satisfactory than human existence that is often one of isolation and is fleeting. As Mahajna (1) says of Wordsworth's image of death in the poem, "Death is perfection, and man can submerge himself again in nature, and become part of the universe." This view of death is clearly visible in "Imitations of Immortality." The speaker in Wordsworth's (3) poem clearly takes comfort from his recognition that nature is eternal and man rejoins nature at death: "Thanks to the human heart by which we live, / Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, / To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." The speaker takes comfort from viewing death as a process of rebirth in a more perfect and eternal form. To become part of the perfection of nature, even if it means one must die, is something too wondrous for sadness or tears. Even the basest flower demonstrates the perfection of nature.
One critic of romantic poetry maintains that poems that focus on death often feature a speaker "looking for a regeneration of life after mortal death" (Romantic 1). We see this was the case in Wordsworth's "Intimation of Immortality," but it is also clearly evident in the speaker in William Blake's "The Lamb." In this poem we clearly see the use of an animal in nature to represent the eternal life promised to human beings by God. In the poem, the speaker keeps asking the lamb if he knows who his ...