[ THE NIGHTINGALE]
As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade, Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, Trees did grow and plants did spring, Everything did banish moan Save the nightingale alone. She, poor bird, as all forlorn, Lean’d her breast against a thorn, And there sung the dolefullest ditty That to hear it was great pity. Fie, fie, fie, now would she cry; Tereu, tereu, by-and-by: That to hear her so complain Scarce I could from tears refrain; For her griefs so lively shown Made me think upon mine own. —Ah, thought I, thou mourn’st in vain, None takes pity on thy pain: Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee, Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee: King Pandion, he is dead, All thy friends are lapp’d in lead: All thy fellow birds do sing Careless of thy sorrowing: Even so, poor bird, like thee None alive will pity me.
[ THE SLEEPER]
At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon: An opiate vapour, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim; And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave; The lily lolls upon the wave; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest; Looking like Lethe, see, the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All Beauty sleeps!—and, lo! where lies (Her casement open to the skies) Irene, with her destinies!
O, lady bright, can it be right, This window open to the night? The wanton airs from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop; The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully, so fearfully, Above the closed and fringèd lid ‘Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid, That, o’er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall! Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here? Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees. Strange is thy pallor, strange thy dress, Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all-solemn silentness.
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep! Heaven have her in its sacred keep! This chamber changed for one more holy, This bed for one more melancholy, I pray to God that she may lie For ever with unopened eye, While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
