第12章 THE NIGHTINGALE...

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 ?ows silently Oer 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 ?nd 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 piercd With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper or neglected love, (And so, poor Wretch! ?lld all things with himself And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrows) he and such as he

First namd 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 stretchd his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell By sun or moonlight, to the in?uxes 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 natures immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all nature lovelier, and itself Be lovd, like nature!--But twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical Who lose the deepning twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still

Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs Oer Philomelas pity-pleading strains. My Friend, and my Friends Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Natures 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 others 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 lea?ts are but half disclosd,

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 vowd 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 moments space, What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence: till the Moon Emerging, hath awakend 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 watchd 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 fore?nger up, And bid us listen! And I deem it wise To make him Natures 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 infants dream) I hurried with him to our orchard plot, And he beholds the moon, and hushd 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 fathers 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.