Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 51-54
So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
- Goodbye forever, the speaker says.
- They didn't succeed in making him raise his head off the pillow. He's enjoying dreamland too much.
- He'd rather keep dreaming than follow love, poetry, or his ambitions.
- Why? Because those might lead to praise, which he seems to think would make him like "a pet lamb in a sentimental farce."
- In other words: the praise would be fake—or at least, not as real to him as sleeping in the grass on a nice day.
- So instead of trying, he'd rather just… you know, not try.
Lines 55-60
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
Into the clouds, and never more return!
- Return to the vase, please, he tells the figures.
- He's got plenty of other visions to occupy himself with, visions that aren't trying to get him to get up and do something.
- These other visions exist in his imagination, which he's able to indulge when he sleeps under trees or lingers in bed.
- He again tells them to go and leave him to his "idle" enjoyment.
- And with that, he lies back.
- It's time for another nap—at least, until the figures make another appearance.