Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NIGHTINGALE, by GEORGE LUNT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NIGHTINGALE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oft have I read in many a foreign tale, oh nightingale!
Last Line: Of one sweet sigh.
Subject(s): Birds; Nature; Nightingales; Singing & Singers


OFT have I read in many a foreign tale,
Oh nightingale!
From thy love-laden heart how song's full soul
Warbled would roll;
While, through the livelong night, from thy clear throat,
The ravishing note,
With such entrancing melody would gush,
That winds grew hush,
As every funeral fall and conquering rise
Challenged the skies.

Thus often, where the fragrant summer roves
Thessalian groves,
And wind-swept isles of beauty nightly sigh
Sweet elegy;
And lovers' vows grew rapturous, as they heard,
Listening the bird;
So could the solemn song enchant the sense
To joy intense;
And Grief's sad heart, by that Æolian strain,
Rapt of its pain,
Forgot the memory of its midnight tears
And wasting years.

There, under bowers and wreathed canopies
Of moonlit trees,
And starry constellations gleaming through
The twilight dew,
The poet's heart in that delicious stream
Bathed every dream,
And thence some hue of heaven his fancy stole,
With music's soul;
And the deep measure, loaded with such freight,
Floated elate;
Far o'er the worldly way and common haunt
Swelled the clear chant,
Like the first bird that, ere the day is born,
Mounts to the morn,
Leaves night below, and catches, as she springs,
Heaven on her wings.

Oh for a vintage draught, full-fraught like this,
To meet my kiss,
Filled to the blushing brim with dreams of old
And bubbling gold!
Some breath of voice divine, or chorded shell,
Of golden spell,
That to the longing soul responds and clings,
And gives it wings;
Or such deep minstrelsies, oh nightingale,
As thy lorn wail;
That fill the minstrel-heart, till raptures make
The heart-strings break,
Breathing life out in the long melody
Of one sweet sigh.





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