O Nightingale! Who ever heard thy song
Might here be moved, till Fancy grows so strong
That listening sense is pardonably cheated 15
Where wood or stream by thee was never greeted.[996]
Surely, from fairest spots of favoured lands,
Were not some gifts withheld by jealous hands,
This hour of deepening darkness here would be
As a fresh morning for new harmony; 20
And lays as prompt would hail the dawn of Night:
A dawn she has both beautiful and bright,
When the East kindles with the full moon's light;[997]
Not like the rising sun's impatient glow
Dazzling the mountains, but an overflow 25
Of solemn splendour, in mutation slow.
Wanderer by spring with gradual progress led,
For sway profoundly felt as widely spread;
To king, to peasant, to rough sailor, dear,
And to the soldier's trumpet-wearied ear; 30
How welcome wouldst thou be to this green Vale
Fairer than Tempe![998] Yet, sweet Nightingale!
From the warm breeze that bears thee on, alight
At will, and stay thy migratory flight;
Build, at thy choice, or sing, by pool or fount, 35
Who shall complain, or call thee to account?
The wisest, happiest, of our kind are they
That ever walk content with Nature's way,
God's goodness—measuring bounty as it may;
For whom the gravest thought of what they miss, 40
Chastening the fulness of a present bliss,
Is with that wholesome office satisfied,
While unrepining sadness is allied
In thankful bosoms to a modest pride.
FOOTNOTES:
[995] Compare the Lines, composed at Grasmere in 1806 (vol iv. p. 48), when Mr. Fox's death was hourly expected—
Yon star upon the mountain-top
Is listening quietly.—Ed.
[996] The nightingale is not usually heard in England farther north than the valley of the Trent.
Compare The Excursion, book iv. l. 1167 (vol. v. p. 188); also the lines (vol. iv, p. 67) beginning—
O Nightingale! thou surely art
A creature of a "fiery heart."—Ed.
[997] 1837.
... moon's light.
Wanderer by ... 1835.