Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems | Page 8

stream
beneath,
But hear no murmuring: it flows silently
O'er its soft bed
of verdure. All is still,
A balmy night! and tho' the stars be dim,
Yet
let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth,
and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark!
the Nightingale begins its song,
"Most musical, most melancholy"[1]
Bird!
A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
In nature there is nothing
melancholy.
--But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was
pierc'd With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow
distemper or neglected love,
(And so, poor Wretch! fill'd all things
with himself
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his
own sorrows) he and such as he
First nam'd these notes a melancholy
strain;
And many a poet echoes the conceit,
Poet, who hath been
building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs

Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell
By sun or moonlight, to the
influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering
his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame

Should share in nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his
song
Should make all nature lovelier, and itself
Be lov'd, like
nature!--But 'twill not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical

Who lose the deep'ning twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and
hot theatres, they still
Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs

O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.
My Friend, and my Friend's
Sister! we have learnt

A different lore: we may not thus profane

Nature's sweet voices always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry
Nightingale
That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates
With fast
thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful, that an April
night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and
disburthen his full soul
Of all its music! And I know a grove
Of

large extent, hard by a castle huge
Which the great lord inhabits not:
and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,
And the trim
walks are broken up, and grass,
Thin grass and king-cups grow within
the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many
Nightingales: and far and near
In wood and thicket over the wide
grove
They answer and provoke each other's songs--
With skirmish
and capricious passagings,
And murmurs musical and swift jug jug

And one low piping sound more sweet than all--
Stirring the air with
such an harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost

Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes,
Whose dewy leafits
are but half disclos'd,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs,

Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistning,
while many a glow-worm in the shade
Lights up her love-torch.
A most gentle maid
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home
Hard by
the Castle, and at latest eve,
(Even like a Lady vow'd and dedicate

To something more than nature in the grove)
Glides thro' the
pathways; she knows all their notes,
That gentle Maid! and oft, a
moment's space,
What time the moon was lost behind a cloud,
Hath
heard a pause of silence: till the Moon
Emerging, hath awaken'd earth
and sky
With one sensation, and those wakeful Birds
Have all burst
forth in choral minstrelsy,
As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept

An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd
Many a Nightingale
perch giddily
On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze,
And
to that motion tune his wanton song,
Like tipsy Joy that reels with
tossing head.
Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve,
And you, my friends!
farewell, a short farewell!
We have been loitering long and pleasantly,

And now for our dear homes.--That strain again!
Full fain it would
delay me!--My dear Babe,
Who, capable of no articulate sound,

Mars all things with his imitative lisp,
How he would place his hand
beside his ear,
His little hand, the small forefinger up,
And bid us

listen! And I deem it wise
To make him Nature's playmate. He knows
well
The evening star: and once when he awoke
In most distressful
mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's
dream)
I hurried with him to our orchard plot,
And he beholds the
moon, and hush'd at once
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,

While his fair eyes that swam with undropt tears
Did glitter in the
yellow moon-beam! Well--
It is a father's tale. But if that Heaven

Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these
songs, that with the night
He may associate Joy! Once more farewell,

Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.
[1] "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses
an excellence far superior to that of mere
description: it is spoken in
the character of the melancholy Man, and has therefore a dramatic
propriety. The Author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the
charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than
which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of
having ridiculed his Bible.
THE FEMALE VAGRANT.
By Derwent's side my Father's cottage stood,
(The Woman thus her
artless story told)
One field, a flock, and what the neighbouring flood

Supplied, to him were more than mines of