To the Nightingale Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia 1499 How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again-thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain! Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] ON A NIGHTINGALE IN APRIL THE yellow moon is a dancing phantom And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper: That leads a host of the Crescent warriors Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons, A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:- Last heard, white music, under the olives William Sharp (1856-1905] TO THE NIGHTINGALE DEAR chorister, who from those shadows sends, If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? With trembling wings sobbed forth, "I love! I love!" William Drummond [1585-1649] THE NIGHTINGALE TO-NIGHT retired, the queen of heaven With young Endymion stays; And now to Hesper it is given Propitious send thy golden ray, Let no false flame seduce to stray To them, by many a grateful song Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs We came, while her enchanting Muse The Nightingale But hark! I hear her liquid tone! Now, Hesper, guide my feet Down the red marl with moss o'ergrown, See the green space: on either hand See, in the midst she takes her stand, Hark! how through many a melting note How sweetly down the void they float! The stars shine out; the forest bends; Whoe'er thou art whom chance may bring To this sequestered spot, If then the plaintive Siren sing, O softly tread beneath her bower And think of Heaven's disposing power, Of man's uncertain lot. O think, o'er all this mortal stage How often virtue dwells with woe; How many griefs from knowledge flow; O sacred bird! let me at eve, 1501 Mark Akenside [1721-1770] TO THE NIGHTINGALE O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, John Milton [1608-1674] PHILOMELA THE Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth While late-bare Earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making; And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing. O Philomela fair, O take some gladness Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken; Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, Full womanlike, complains her will was broken, Ode to a Nightingale But I, who, daily craving, 1503 Cannot have to content me, Have more cause to lament me, Since wanting is more woe than too much having. O Philomela fair, O take some gladness Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret, Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; |