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I have head the nightingale herself.

Hark! ah, the nightingale-- The tawny-throated! Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!--what pain! . . . . Again--thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light.

As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made.

It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure. Which follows the decline of day, As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

"Most musical, most melancholy" bird! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy.

'Tis the merry nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours, Of winter's past or coming void of care, Well pleased with delights which present are, Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers.

Like a wedding-song all-melting Sings the nightingale, the dear one.

The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang.

Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--do I wake or sleep?

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown.

Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice.

To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep.

What bird so sings, yet does so wail? O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale-- Jug, jug, jug, jug--tereu, she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise.

Sweet bird that shunn'st the nose of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song.

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still; Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill While the jolly hours lead on propitious May.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love.

I said to the Nightingale: "Hail, all hail! Pierce with thy trill the dark, Like a glittering music-spark, When the earth grows pale and dumb."