Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees they cannot hear thee,
Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:
King Pandion he is dead,

All thy friends are lapped in lead;

All thy fellow birds do sing
Careless of thy sorrowing:

Even so, poor bird, like thee,

None alive will pity me.

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 pain-
Say, will it never heal?

And can this fragrant lawn

With its cool trees, and night,

And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy racked heart and brain
Afford no balm?

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,

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
Down secret ways of the flowing shade;

And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper
Where the alders wave.

Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper: Only the moon is a dancing blade

That leads a host of the Crescent warriors

To a phantom raid.

Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons,

A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:The gray-green glooms of the elm are stirring, Newly afraid.

Last heard, white music, under the olives
Where once Theocritus sang and played―
Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder,
O moon-white maid!

William Sharp (1855-1905]

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

DEAR chorister, who from those shadows sends,
Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light,
Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends,
Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight:

If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends,
Who ne'er, not in a dream, did taste delight,
May thee importune who like care pretends,
And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite;
Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try,

And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains,
Since, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky

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
Awhile to rule the vacant sky,

Till she shall to her lamp supply

A stream of brighter rays.

Propitious send thy golden ray,
Thou purest light above:
Let no false flame seduce to stray
Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm;
But lead where music's healing charm
May soothe afflicted love.

To them, by many a grateful song
In happier seasons vowed,

These lawns, Olympia's haunt, belong:
Oft by yon silver stream we walked,
Or fixed, while Philomela talked,
Beneath yon copses stood.

Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs
That roofless tower invade,

We came, while her enchanting Muse
The radiant moon above us held:
Till, by a clamorous owl compelled,
She fled the solemn shade.

The Nightingale

But hark! I hear her liquid tone!

Now, Hesper, guide my feet

Down the red marl with moss o'ergrown,
Through yon wild thicket next the plain,
Whose hawthorns choke the winding lane
Which leads to her retreat.

See the green space: on either hand
Enlarged it spreads around:

See, in the midst she takes her stand,
Where one old oak his awful shade
Extends o'er half the level mead,
Enclosed in woods profound.

Hark! how through many a melting note
She now prolongs her lays:

How sweetly down the void they float!
The breeze their magic path attends;

The stars shine out; the forest bends;
The wakeful heifers gaze.

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
What mournful scenes arise:
What ruin waits on kingly rage;

How often virtue dwells with woe;

How many griefs from knowledge flow;
How swiftly pleasure flies!

O sacred bird! let me at eve,
Thus wandering all alone,
Thy tender counsel oft receive,
Bear witness to thy pensive airs,
And pity Nature's common cares,
Till I forget my own.

1501

Mark Akenside [1721-1770]

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh;
As thou from year to year hast sung too late
For my relief, yet hadst no reason why.

Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

John Milton [1608-1674]

PHILOMELA

THE Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,

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 lake some gladness
That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness!
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth;

Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

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,