Like Percy Bysshe Shelley ’ s " To a Skylark " , Keats ’ s narrator listen to a bird song , but listening to the song within “ Ode to a Nightingale ” is almost painful and similar to death . The narrator seek to be with the nightingale and abandon his sense of vision in order to embrace the sound in an attempt to share in the darkness with the bird . As the poem end , the trance caused by the nightingale is broken and the narrator is left wondering if it was a real vision or just a dream . The poem reliance on the process of sleeping common to Keats 's poems , and " Ode to a Nightingale " shares many of the same themes as Keats 's Sleep and Poetry and Eve of St. Agnes . This further separate the image of the nightingale 's song from its closest comparative image , the urn as represented in " Ode on a Grecian Urn " . The nightingale is distant and mysterious , and even disappear at the end of the poem . The dream image emphasize the shadowiness and elusiveness of the poem . These elements make it impossible for there to be a complete self @-@ identification with the nightingale , but it also allow for self @-@ awareness to permeate throughout the poem , albeit in an altered state .