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THE NIGHTINGALE;

A CONVERSATIONAL POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.


    No cloud, no relique of the sunken day
    Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip
    Of sullen Light, no obscure trembling hues.
    Come, we will rest on this old mossy Bridge!
    You see the glimmer of the stream beneath,
    But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
    O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,
    A balmy night! and tho’ the stars be dim,
    Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
    That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
    A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
    And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
    “Most musical, most melancholy”[1] Bird!
    A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
    In nature there is nothing melancholy.
    --But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc’d
    With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
    Or slow distemper or neglected love,
    (And so, poor Wretch! fill’d all things with himself
    And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
    Of his own sorrows) he and such as he
    First nam’d these notes a melancholy strain;
    And many a poet echoes the conceit,
    Poet, who hath been building up the rhyme
    When he had better far have stretch’d his limbs
    Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell
    By sun or moonlight, to the influxes
    Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
    Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
    And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
    Should share in nature’s immortality,
    A venerable thing! and so his song
    Should make all nature lovelier, and itself
    Be lov’d, like nature!--But ’twill not be so;
    And youths and maidens most poetical
    Who lose the deep’ning twilights of the spring
    In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still
    Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs
    O’er Philomela’s pity-pleading strains.
    My Friend, and my Friend’s Sister! we have learnt
    A different lore: we may not thus profane
    Nature’s sweet voices always full of love
    And joyance! ’Tis the merry Nightingale
    That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
    With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
    As he were fearful, that an April night
    Would be too short for him to utter forth
    His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
    Of all its music! And I know a grove
    Of large extent, hard by a castle huge
    Which the great lord inhabits not: and so
    This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
    And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
    Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
    But never elsewhere in one place I knew
    So many Nightingales: and far and near
    In wood and thicket over the wide grove
    They answer and provoke each other’s songs--
    With skirmish and capricious passagings,
    And murmurs musical and swift jug jug
    And one low piping sound more sweet than all--
    Stirring the air with such an harmony,
    That should you close your eyes, you might almost
    Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
    Whose dewy leafits are but half disclos’d,
    You may perchance behold them on the twigs,
    Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
    Glistning, while many a glow-worm in the shade
    Lights up her love-torch.

                              A most gentle maid
    Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
    Hard by the Castle, and at latest eve,
    (Even like a Lady vow’d and dedicate
    To something more than nature in the grove)
    Glides thro’ the pathways; she knows all their notes,
    That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment’s space,
    What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
    Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon
    Emerging, hath awaken’d earth and sky
    With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds
    Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,
    As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept
    An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch’d
    Many a Nightingale perch giddily
    On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,
    And to that motion tune his wanton song,
    Like tipsy Joy that reels with tossing head.

    Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
    And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell!
    We have been loitering long and pleasantly,
    And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!
    Full fain it would delay me!--My dear Babe,
    Who, capable of no articulate sound,
    Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
    How he would place his hand beside his ear,
    His little hand, the small forefinger up,
    And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
    To make him Nature’s playmate. He knows well
    The evening star: and once when he awoke
    In most distressful mood (some inward pain
    Had made up that strange thing, an infant’s dream)
    I hurried with him to our orchard plot,
    And he beholds the moon, and hush’d at once
    Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
    While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears
    Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well--
    It is a father’s tale. But if that Heaven
    Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
    Familiar with these songs, that with the night
    He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,
    Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.


    [1] “_Most musical, most melancholy_.” This passage in Milton
    possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere
    description: it is spoken in the character of the melancholy
    Man, and has therefore a _dramatic_ propriety. The Author makes
    this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having
    alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than which
    none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of
    having ridiculed his Bible.