NEST OF THE NIGHTINGALE.
Up this green woodland side let’s softly rove,
And list the nightingale; she dwells just here.
Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear
The noise might drive her from her home of love;
For here I’ve heard her many a merry year—
At morn, at eve—nay, all the live-long day,
As though she lived on song. This very spot,
Just where the old-man’s-beard all wildly trails
Rude arbors o’er the road, and stops the way;
And where the child its blue-bell flowers hath got,
Laughing and creeping through the mossy rails;
There have I hunted like a very boy,
Creeping on hands and knees through matted thorn,
To find her nest, and see her feed her young,
And vainly did I many hours employ:
All seemed as hidden as a thought unborn;
And where those crumpling fern-leaves ramp among
The hazel’s under-boughs, I’ve nestled down
And watch’d her while she sang; and her renown
Hath made me marvel that so famed a bird
Should have no better dress than russet brown.
Her wings would tremble in her ecstasy,
And feathers stand on end, as ’twere with joy;
And mouth wide open to release her heart
Of its out-sobbing songs. The happiest part
Of summer’s fame she shared, for so to me
Did happy fancy shapen her employ.
But if I touched a bush, or scarcely stirred,
All in a moment stopt. I watched in vain:
The timid bird had left the hazel bush,
And oft in distance hid to sing again.
Lost in a wilderness of listening leaves,
Rich ecstasy would pour its luscious strain,
Till envy spurred the emulating thrush
To start less wild and scarce inferior songs;
For while of half the year care him bereaves,
To damp the ardor of his speckled breast,
The nightingale to summer’s life belongs,
And naked trees, and winter’s nipping wrongs
Are strangers to her music, and her rest.
Her joys are ever green—her world is wide!
Hark! there she is, as usual; let’s be hush;
For in this black-thorn clump, if rightly guessed,
Her curious house is hidden. Part aside
Those hazel branches in a gentle way,
And stoop right cautious 'neath the rustling boughs,
For we will have another search to-day,
And hunt this fern-strewn thorn-clump round and round;
And where this reeded wood-grass idly bows,
We’ll wade right through; it is a likely nook.
In such like spots, and often on the ground
They’ll build, where rude boys never think to look.
Ay! as I live! her secret nest is here,
Upon this white-thorn stump! * * *
We will not plunder music of its dower,
Nor turn this spot of happiness to thrall,
For melody seems hid in every flower
That blossoms near thy home. These blue-bells all
Seem bowing with the beautiful in song;
And gaping cuckoo-flower, with spotted leaves,
Seems blushing of the singing it has heard.
How curious is the nest! No other bird
Uses such loose materials, or weaves
Its dwelling in such spots! Dead oaken leaves
Are placed without, and velvet moss within;
And little scraps of grass, and scant and spare,
What hardly seem materials, down and hair;
For from men’s haunts she nothing seems to win.
John Clare.