Bird Parliament · 4 of 20

The Nightingale

Then came The Nightingale, from such a Draught Of Ecstasy that from the Rose he quaff’d Reeling as drunk, and ever did distil In exquisite divisions from his Bill To inflame the Hearts of Men—and thus sang He— ‘To me alone, alone, is giv’n the Key Of Love; of whose whole Mystery possesst, When I reveal a little to the Rest, Forthwith Creation listening forsakes The Reins of Reason, and my Frenzy takes: Yea, whosoever once has quaint this wine He leaves unlisten’d David’s Song for mine. In vain do Men for my Divisions strive, And die themselves making dead Lutes alive: I hang the Stars with Meshes for Men’s Souls: The Garden underneath my Music rolls. The long, long Morns that mourn the Rose away I sit in silence, and on Anguish prey: But the first Air which the New Year shall breathe Up to my Boughs of Message from beneath That in her green Harim my Bride unveils, My Throat bursts silence and her Advent hails, Who in her crimson Volume registers The Notes of Him whose Life is lost in hers. The Rose I love and worship now is here; If dying, yet reviving, Year by Year; But that you tell of, all my Life why waste In vainly searching; or, if found, not taste?’

So with Division infinite and Trill On would the Nightingale have warbled still, And all the World have listen’d; but a Note Of sterner Import check’d the lovesick Throat.

‘O watering with thy melodious Tears Love’s Garden, and who dost indeed the Ears Of men with thy melodious Fingers mould As David’s Finger Iron did of old: Why not, like David, dedicate thy Dower Of Song to something better than a Flower? Empress indeed of Beauty, so they say, But one whose Empire hardly lasts a Day, By Insurrection of the Morning’s Breath That made her hurried to Decay and Death: And while she lasts contented to be seen, And worshipt, for the Garden’s only Queen, Leaving thee singing on thy Bough forlorn, Or if she smile on Thee, perhaps in Scorn.’

Like that fond Dervish waiting in the throng When some World-famous Beauty went along, Who smiling on the Antic as she pass’d— Forthwith Staff, Bead and Scrip away he cast, And grovelling in the Kennel, took to whine Before her Door among the Dogs and Swine. Which when she often went unheeding by, But one day quite as heedless ask’d him—‘Why?’— He told of that one Smile, which, all the Rest Passing, had kindled Hope within his Breast— Again she smiled and said, ‘O self-beguiled Poor Wretch, at whom and not on whom I smiled.’