THE NIGHTINGALE.
FROM THE DUTCH.
Soul of living music, teach me—
Teach me, floating thus along!
Love-sick warbler, come and reach me
With the secrets of thy song!
How thy beak, so sweetly trembling,
On one note long lingering tries;
Or a thousand tones assembling,
Pour the rush of harmonies!
Or when rising shrill and shriller,
Other music dies away—
Other songs grow still and stiller,
Songster of the night and day!
Till—all sunk to silence round thee—
Not a whisper—not a word—
Not a leaf-fall to confound thee—
Breathless all—thou only heard.
Tell me, thou who failest never,
Minstrel of the songs of spring!
Did the world see ages ever,
When thy voice forgot to sing?
Is there in your woodland history
Any Homer, whom ye read?
Has your music aught of mystery?
Has it measure, cliff, and creed?
Have ye teachers who instruct ye—
Checking each ambitious strain—
Learned parrots to conduct ye,
When ye wander back again?
Smiling at my dreams, I see thee,
Nature, in her chainless will,
Did not fetter thee, but free thee—
Pour thy hymns of rapture still!
Plumed in pomp, and pride prodigious,
Lo! the gaudy peacock rears;
But his grating voice so hideous,
Shocks the soul and grates the ears.
Finches may be trained to follow
Notes which dexterous arts combine;
But those notes sound vain and hollow
When compared, sweet bird, with thine.
Classic themes no longer courting—
Ancient tongues I’ll cast away,
And with nightingales disporting,
Sing the wild and woodland lay!
Anonymous Translation. Loots, a living Dutch Poet.