"O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art" 1545 The spring comes back again, the fields rejoice, What didst thou sing of, O my summer bird? What didst thou sing of, thou melodious sprite? What didst thou sing of, O thou jubilant soul? Of the soft swaying, orange scented breeze. What didst thou sing of, thou embodied glee? Daily its tides of briny freshness leads. What didst thou sing of, O thou wingèd voice? Dark, bronze-leaved oaks, with silver mosses crowned, Where thy free kindred live, love, and rejoice, With wreaths of golden jasmine curtained round. These didst thou sing of, spirit of delight! From thy own radiant sky, thou quivering spark! These thy sweet southern dreams of warmth and light, Through the grim northern winter drear and dark. Frances Anne Kemble [1809-1893] "O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART" O NIGHTINGALE! thou surely art A creature of a "fiery heart": These notes of thine-they pierce and pierce; Thou sing'st as if the God of wine Of shades, and dews, and silent night; I heard a Stock-dove sing or say He did not cease, but cooed-and cooed; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the Song-the Song for me! William Wordsworth (1770-1850] PHILOMEL As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, Trees did grow and plants did spring; Leaned her breast up-till a thorn, Philomela Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, Senseless trees they cannot hear thee, All thy friends are lapped in lead; None alive will pity me. 1547 Richard Barnfield [1574-1627] PHILOMELA HARK! ah, the nightingale The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!-what pain! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world painSay, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and seared eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, 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 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 [1855-1905] TO THE NIGHTINGALE DEAR chorister, who from those shadows sends, The Nightingale If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, 1549 Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? The bird, as if my questions did her move, 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 |