Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE, by CORA RANDALL FABBRI First Line: Hush! I hear the nightingale's pure notes Last Line: Dirge of life. Subject(s): Birds; Nightingales | ||||||||
HUSH! I hear the nightingale's pure notes, Faint and far, Like a star That from out the depth of heaven floats. So from out the foliage, dense and green, Floats the music of the nightingale; In a rapture of delight For the gloaming dim and white, In a rhapsody of love for chaste Dian, pure and pale. Ev'ry flower 'neath the moon's mild dart Lifteth up Pearl-dewed cup To receive the song into her heart; And the breeze hath caught it in his arms, Flinging it and floating it afar. O thou wondrous nightingale! Am'rous of the moonlight pale, Hast thou learnt thy song divine from the music of the star? What sweet theme, Bird, moveth thee to sing? Star or flower? Moonlit hour? Joy or grief? or beauty of the Spring? Did thy song have birth in floods of love? Art thou love-embodied? All the earth Ringeth with thy clear refrain, Floating like a mystic rain, Upward to the star's unrest, downward to the flower's birth. Hearing, I forget that Life is pain, That the morrow Brings forth sorrow, And that dear, dead buds bloom not again. Oh, to lie, as now, forevermore, With this music swelling out so sweet! But all things must cease to be, And thy tender rhapsody Melteth with the drooping star, as all joys are, incomplete. Certes, Bird, thy song has source elsewhere. Here, alas, Pleasures pass Fleet of foot, and joys, heart-grievings bear. Friends grow cold, and even Love forgets; Flowers fade, and Spring dies very soon; Beauty passeth in a breath, And Life yields itself to Death, And the wonder of thy voice fadeth with the fading moon. Memory of joy's sweet ecstasy, Love's first kiss, Love's best bliss, Were not worthy of thy melody. Doth thy song express some hidden dream, Deep, too deep for words, within man's heart? Some vague longing, some unrest, Some sweet vision unexpressed Of a world where Summer lives and dear friends must never part. Bird, thy song into my spirit creeps! What were Night, Stars and Light, Lacking music that from thee outleaps? Dulcet notes that overflow the world, Piercing clouds and darkness like a knife, In a mellow-flooding breath That is worth all Life and Death ... And so Love's sweet song o'erflows all the solemn dirge of Life. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE IS LIKE THE SCENT OF SYRINGA by MINA LOY THE NIGHTINGALE IN BADELUNDA by TOMAS TRANSTROMER THE NIGHTINGALE by PAUL VERLAINE ODE, FR. THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM by RICHARD BARNFIELD NIGHTINGALES by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES BIANCA AMONG THE NIGHTINGALES by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE NIGHTINGALE; A CONVERSATION POEM by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A PORTRAIT by CORA RANDALL FABBRI |
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