Poems and Essays By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton) |
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 | Poems and Essays |  |
18
A NIGHTINGALE IN EASTBURY WOODS.
Queen of clear song!
Thou, in the evening's hour,
Hid the thick brakes among,
What time the blue-eyed May doth shower
Blossoms upon awakening Spring,
Weavest thy tangled web of tune.
Still, still as death!
Peace from the corner of the crescent moon
Hath stooped to earth, and hovering holds her breath,
Fearing to mar thy pauses.
Still, O still!
Echo forgets her art,
Leaned listening from some hollow-ivied tree,
Knowing her second part
Would jar upon thy single harmony.
Thou, in the evening's hour,
Hid the thick brakes among,
What time the blue-eyed May doth shower
Blossoms upon awakening Spring,
Weavest thy tangled web of tune.
Still, still as death!
Peace from the corner of the crescent moon
Hath stooped to earth, and hovering holds her breath,
Fearing to mar thy pauses.
Still, O still!
Echo forgets her art,
Leaned listening from some hollow-ivied tree,
Knowing her second part
Would jar upon thy single harmony.
Thou, swoll'n with song,
Suitest thy numbers to the listener's ear,
Charming the varied throng.
Suitest thy numbers to the listener's ear,
Charming the varied throng.
Thou to the lover tellest tales of love
When, sick with changing fears,
He walks the accustomed grove,
Taking his soul with sweeter lays
Than Sappho tongued with fire,
Or mild Eurydice in happier days
Hymning to Orpheus' lyre.
When, sick with changing fears,
He walks the accustomed grove,
Taking his soul with sweeter lays
Than Sappho tongued with fire,
Or mild Eurydice in happier days
Hymning to Orpheus' lyre.
19
The mourner with wan cheeks, bent o'er the hoary stones,
Weeps at thy sweetly sorrow-soothing art,
Arousing old love-tones
In his dejected heart.
But most the poet,
Wooing the Muse among the dewy shades,
Weaves, of the fragments of thy wild-wood song,
More airy palaces
Than do to earth belong.
Weeps at thy sweetly sorrow-soothing art,
Arousing old love-tones
In his dejected heart.
But most the poet,
Wooing the Muse among the dewy shades,
Weaves, of the fragments of thy wild-wood song,
More airy palaces
Than do to earth belong.
I none of these:
Stretched on the gray trunk of some fallen tree,
In perfect silence of this Sabbath eve,
Learn wondrous things of thee.
Thou bidst me leave
The cankering cares and low desires that feed
On my immortal soul,
Seeking my meed
In Duty's goal.
Stretched on the gray trunk of some fallen tree,
In perfect silence of this Sabbath eve,
Learn wondrous things of thee.
Thou bidst me leave
The cankering cares and low desires that feed
On my immortal soul,
Seeking my meed
In Duty's goal.
To me thy lay
Seems like the expiration of pent love,
Breaking restraint away,
Scaling the eternal bowers above,
Nectar-bedewed;
Taking the willing ear of God
With simple gratitude.
Seems like the expiration of pent love,
Breaking restraint away,
Scaling the eternal bowers above,
Nectar-bedewed;
Taking the willing ear of God
With simple gratitude.
20
Teach me, O Nightingale,
The fervour of thy tale.
I, filled with holy peace, would fain
Breathe my faint thanks up to the God of light,
Mounting on thy celestial strain,
O tuned child of Night!
The fervour of thy tale.
I, filled with holy peace, would fain
Breathe my faint thanks up to the God of light,
Mounting on thy celestial strain,
O tuned child of Night!
1843.
| Poems and Essays | |