 | Virginalia ; or, songs of my summer nights |  |
THE DYING NIGHTINGALE.
“Oh! miserable me!”
—Calderon.
—Calderon.
Birds of the wilderness!
Ye woodland choristers of many dyes!
Wake ye not in the night at my distress
Poured forth more deep than all your melodies?
How can ye sleep beneath the boundless sea
Of my soul's grief poured forth in melody?
Ye woodland choristers of many dyes!
Wake ye not in the night at my distress
Poured forth more deep than all your melodies?
How can ye sleep beneath the boundless sea
Of my soul's grief poured forth in melody?
Why was to my heart given
A more impassioned fulness than to thine?
Why should it be by its own richness riven—
Doomed, by its own sweet eloquence, to pine—
Distracting thus the silence of the night
With its deep, fiery, mournful undelight?
A more impassioned fulness than to thine?
Why should it be by its own richness riven—
Doomed, by its own sweet eloquence, to pine—
Distracting thus the silence of the night
With its deep, fiery, mournful undelight?
96
Night is the time for sleep—
By day-time all the other minstrels sing—
While, for its own deep love, my heart must weep
Itself away in song—as with the spring
Faileth the river—that it cannot find
One mate, on earth, for its earth-hating mind!
By day-time all the other minstrels sing—
While, for its own deep love, my heart must weep
Itself away in song—as with the spring
Faileth the river—that it cannot find
One mate, on earth, for its earth-hating mind!
Oh! why was it my fate
To find, for my impassioned soul, relief
Only by pouring out disconsolate
And bitter strains, to ease my heart's deep grief?
For, as the streams of their rough shoals complain,
So does my heart of grief in this sad strain!
To find, for my impassioned soul, relief
Only by pouring out disconsolate
And bitter strains, to ease my heart's deep grief?
For, as the streams of their rough shoals complain,
So does my heart of grief in this sad strain!
Where is the friend to grant
Requital for my grief in this deep strain?
Some faithful friend to share in my complaint,
And half-partake with me its bitter pain?
Mute is my mate—though drowned beneath the flood
Of my soul's grief poured forth in solitude!
Requital for my grief in this deep strain?
Some faithful friend to share in my complaint,
And half-partake with me its bitter pain?
Mute is my mate—though drowned beneath the flood
Of my soul's grief poured forth in solitude!
Yes—mute is my soul's mate!—
She cannot sing to share with me this strain,
Through which my soul tells of its bitter fate—
Whose doom, in this dark world, is to complain!
No, she is silent—silent, on yon bough,
As death itself—mute as my own soul now!
She cannot sing to share with me this strain,
Through which my soul tells of its bitter fate—
Whose doom, in this dark world, is to complain!
No, she is silent—silent, on yon bough,
As death itself—mute as my own soul now!
1846.
| Virginalia ; or, songs of my summer nights | |