Speaker

The speaker is the central character in this poem. He is in passionate, unrequited love with someone who does not return his affection. He is sensitive to the beauty of nature, but seems to be quite unaware of the pain of others.

The Beloved

The speaker is in love with someone who either he cannot be with or who does not return his feelings. Other than this, we learn nothing about the love-object, as central as she is to the poem's story.

Philomela

Philomela is a character taken from Greco-Roman mythology. She was raped and her tongue was cut out by her brother-in-law, Tereus. After she and her sister got revenge on Tereus by feeding him his own son's flesh, she was turned into a nightingale by the gods. Philomela thus eternally sings her sorrow throughout the world in the form of a bird, which is how she...