Observations placeholder

Sing on sweet bird; may no worse hap befall

Thy visions than the fear that now deceives.

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 harebells all

Seem bowing with the beautiful in song,

And gaping cuckoo with its spotted leaves

Seems blushing of the singing it has heard

How curious is the nest.  No other bird

Uses such loose materials or weaves

Their dwellings in such spots – dead oaken leaves

Are placed without  and velvet moss within

And little scraps of grass – and scant and spare

Of what seem scarce materials, down and hair

For from man's haunts she seemeth nought to win

This is the month the Nightingale, clod brown,

Is heard among the woodland shady boughs

This is the time when in the vale, grass grown,

The maiden hears at eve her lover's vows

What time the blue mist round her patient cows

Dim rises from the grass and half conceals

Their dappled hides – I hear the Nightingale,

That from the little blackthorn spinny steals

To the old hazel hedge that skirts the vale,

And still unseen, sings sweet – the ploughman feels

The thrilling music as he goes along

And imitates and listens – while the fields

Lose all their paths in dusk to lead him wrong

Still sings the Nightingale her sweet melodious song

And where these crimping fern leaves ramp among

The hazel's underboughs – I've nestled down

And watched her while she sung – 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 fancies shapen her employ

But if I touched a bush or scarcely stirred

All in a moment stopped – I watched in vain

The timid bird had left the hazel bush

And at a 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 cares with him for half the year remain

To damp the ardour of his speckled breast,

While nightingales to Summer's life belongs,

And naked trees and Winter's nipping wrongs

Are strangers to her music and her rest