THE NIGHTINGALE...
Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon
A balmy night! and tho the stars be dim,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
Full fain it would delay me!--My dear Babe,
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
Should share in natures immortality,
By sun or moonlight, to the in?uxes
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
The evening star: and once when he awoke
He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,
But hear no murmuring: it ?ows silently
So many Nightingales: and far and near
Many a Nightingale perch giddily
First namd these notes a melancholy strain;
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
When he had better far hav九-九-藏-书-网e stretchd his limbs
A most gentle maid
Should make all nature lovelier, and itself
In wood and thicket over the wide grove
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell
No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
It is a fathers tale. But if that Heaven
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Of all its music! And I know a grove
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
Or slow distemper or neglected love,
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well--
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
An hundred airy harps! And she hath watchd
I hurried with him to our orchard plot,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
THE NIGHTINGALE;A CONVERSATIONAL POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.藏书网
Would be too short for him to utter forth
(And so, poor Wretch! ?lld all things with himself
Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept
Emerging, hath awakend earth and sky
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
Stirring the air with such an harmony,
Which the great lord inhabits not: and so
Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
Of his own sorrows) he and such as he
Who lose the deepning twilights of the spring
Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
As he were fearful, that an April night
Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
A pleasure in th
九_九_藏_书_网
e dimness of the stars.And one low piping sound more sweet than all--
And to that motion tune his wanton song,
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
My Friend, and my Friends Sister! we have learnt
[1] "_Most musical, most melancholy_." This passage in Miltonpossesses an excellence far superior to that of meredescription: it is spoken in the character of the melancholyMan, and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makesthis remark, to rescue himself from the charge of havingalluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than whichnone could be more painful to him, except perhaps that ofhaving ridiculed his Bible.
His little hand, the small fore?nger up,
And youths and maidens most poetical
Glides thro the pathways; she knows all their notes,
And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
That gentle Maid! www.99lib.netand oft, a moments space,
Oer Philomelas pity-pleading strains.
Natures sweet voices always full of love
To something more than nature in the grove)
And joyance! Tis the merry Nightingale
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge
Lights up her love-torch.
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Whose dewy lea?ts are but half disclosd,
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
"Most musical, most melancholy"[1] Bird!
A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
And many a poet echoes the conceit,
Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme
They answer and provoke each others songs--
Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!
A venerable thing! and so his song
With skirmish and capricious passagings,
And he beholds the moon, and hushd at once
Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.
Be lo九九藏书网vd, like nature!--But twill not be so;
Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.
Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.
While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears
With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds
Oer its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
(Even like a Lady vowd and dedicate
Had made up that strange thing, an infants dream)
How he would place his hand beside his ear,
That gladden the green earth, and we shall ?nd
You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!
--But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was piercd
Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
To make him Natures playmate. He knows well
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates