Sometimes they flit and swing as though two blossoms of the Spring
Had quickened on these bleak October branches suddenly.
They are like fairy birds flown down from skies which no one knows,
Their pointed yellow bills are bright as April daffodils,
Their plumy whiteness heavenly as January snows.
Loveliest guests that choose our garden-plot for loitering!
Oh, what a sudden flower of joy is set upon the hour
When in their cherry cages two white blackbirds sit and swing.
NIGHTINGALES.
HE nightingales around our house
Among the lovely orchard boughs:
Where the young apple-dawn too soon
Turns whiter than the daylit moon,
And ’mid its shadowy silver bowers
The quince is flushed with heavenly flowers
That opening poise as though for flight:
The nightingales sing day and night,
With piercing, long, insistent calling,
And chuckle of sweet waters falling,
And unimaginable trill
That makes my heart beat and stand still.