ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Mortality. Because living forever sounds

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like such a drag.

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What shift is indicated in line 15?

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And here are the potential answers...

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In poetry, a shift is something like a key change in music.

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The poem goes from doing one thing... to doing another.

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UNLIKE in music, it's rarely because the writer is having trouble... hitting the high notes...

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So let's take a look at line 15 and see what we can see.

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Although... we want to see what SHIFT takes place, so we should also look at the few lines

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that precede it:

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Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play

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on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

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Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

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Line 15 is the last one... the one that starts with "fair youth."

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So... what changes? Is he suddenly addressing the urn?

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Nah... he's been talking to the urn the entire time. Apparently, his silverware already had

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plans. Is he now addressing his own former youth?

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Nope. He's not talking to himself... although, that would probably be an improvement, from

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a social standpoint...

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...instead, he's talking to this "fair youth beneath the trees"... whom he has spotted

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on the side of the urn. Let's keep going...

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Well, because we just established that he isn't addressing himself, we can rule out

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option C, too...

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...and D can't be it, because he's no longer talking to the urn in general -- he's talking

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to a SPECIFIC image on the urn...

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...which is option E.

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Remind us not to attend any of this guy's dinner parties...

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