 Contemporary critics of Keats enjoyed the poem , and it was heavily quoted in their reviews . An anonymous review of Keats 's poetry that ran in the August and October 1820 Scots Magazine stated : " Amongst the minor poems we prefer the ' Ode to the Nightingale . ' Indeed , we are inclined to prefer it beyond every other poem in the book ; but let the reader judge . The third and seventh stanzas have a charm for us which we should find it difficult to explain . We have read this ode over and over again , and every time with increased delight . " At the same time , Leigh Hunt wrote a review of Keats 's poem for the 2 August and 9 August 1820 The <unk> : " As a specimen of the Poems , which are all lyrical , we must indulge ourselves in quoting entire the ' Ode to a Nightingale ' . There is that mixture in it of real melancholy and imaginative relief , which poetry alone presents us in her ' charmed cup , ' and which some over @-@ rational critics have undertaken to find wrong because it is not true . It does not follow that what is not true to them , is not true to others . If the relief is real , the mixture is good and <unk> . " 
