The Home Book of Verse Volume Iii Part 52

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.

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 s.p.a.ce: 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 s.h.i.+ne 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.

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 take 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, But I, who, daily craving, 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 That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness!

Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.

Philip Sidney [1554-1586]

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

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; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her l.u.s.trous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and r.e.t.a.r.ds: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cl.u.s.tered around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The gra.s.s, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this pa.s.sing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic cas.e.m.e.nts, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?

John Keats [1795-1821]

SONG

'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark, To the soothing song of sorrow.

Oh nightingale! What doth she ail?

And is she sad or jolly?

For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So like to melancholy.

The merry lark, he soars on high, No worldly thought o'ertakes him; He sings aloud to the clear blue sky, And the daylight that awakes him.

As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay, The nightingale is trilling; With feeling bliss, no less than his, Her little heart is thrilling.

Yet ever and anon, a sigh Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth.

By night and day, she tunes her lay, To drive away all sorrow; For bliss, alas! to-night must pa.s.s, And woe may come to-morrow.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1840]