The poem is set both inside and outside a forest. We'll explain. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker peers into the woods from outside and tells the nightingale, "Whoa, dude, I'm jealous that you get to live in there. How can I get a place like that?" He imagines that the bird is living it up in the forest like a pleasure-seeker in the sun-soaked Mediterranean. When he compares the forest to the world outside, the place where most humans live, it makes the outside world look like the site of endless death and decay. Talk about a skewed perspective! He ignores all the good parts of the human world.