When he had better far have stretched his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moon-light, 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 loved, 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 joyous! '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.
A most gentle maid
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a lady vowed and dedicate
To something more than nature in the grove, Glides through the pathways; she knows all their
That gentle maid! and oft, a moment's space, What time the moon was lost behind the cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence: till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and those wakeful birds Have all burst forth with choral minstrelsy, As if one quick and sudden gale had swept An hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a Nightingale perch giddily
On blos❜my 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 evc, 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 head, His little hand, the small fore-finger 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 hushed 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!
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.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!
She lean'd against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight:
She stood and listened to my harp Amid the ling'ring light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope, my joy, my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs, that make her grieve.
I played a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story- An old rude song that fitted well The ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace; For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight, that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.
I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah! The low, the deep, the pleading tone, With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace; And she forgave me that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!
But when I told the cruel scorn
Which crazed this bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain woods, Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once, In green and sunny glade,
There came, and looked him in the face, An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew, it was a fiend, This miserable Knight!
And how, unknowing what he did, He leap'd amid a murd'rous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land;
And how she wept and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain- And ever strvoe to expiate
The scorn, that crazed his brain :
And that she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away When on the yellow forest leaves A dying man he lay ;
His dying words—But when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My falt❜ring voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve,
The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindie hope An undistinguishable throng!
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