The Nightingale
and the Mocking Bird
Introduction
I.
Would I might hear the nightingale!
But what can wishing so avail?
Would I might hear the mocking bird!
Or would that I, for once, had heard
The singers try a match,
With pipe and trill and catch;
With flavored sylvan fancies blent;
Of all love's sweetness redolent;
With quick, delicious passaging;
And racy rondels of the spring!
II.
Would I through verdurous ways of might wend
Of some old forest that should blend
The charm of every clime!
With tangled copse and open glade,
And spicy depth of denser shade;
There lissome vines should droop and cling,
And clumps of musky blossoms swing;
And there should play an idle breeze
To toss the bloom of scented trees.
The day should shine without a stain.
Beneath a bower of jessamine,
With passion-flower and eglantine,
There, on the matted moss, to lie
And hear the pleasant rivalry!
The Mocking Bird
I.
Then first a liquid joy should float
From out the native wilding's throat.
With frenzied eye, and quivering wing,
And 'passioned power that bird should sing;
With wild and mounting rhapsody
As though he pined to pierce the sky;
And when the last full marvel fell
There should be silence like a spell.
The Nightingale
I.
When time for brooding calm was o'er,
Then might the touching silence break,
With half a sob and half a song,
To bid such lovely echoes wake
As never woke in wood before:
Then might the bird his trillets throng,
As though he must his thanks express
In a burst of tenderness.
II.
To crown my transport, at the end,
These two one perfect song should blend;
And from a wild magnolia tree
Might steal the haunting melody.
So weirdly sweet the stream would swell
From singers singing far too well
Their thirst in harmony to slake—
Sudden—the gentle hearts would break.
And with a mortal ecstasy
In one long burst of rapture die.
Perchance, what these, God-taught, had sung
Might loose, at last, my timeless tongue:
In such a spot, on such a day,
I, too, might sing my soul away.
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