TO THE
NIGHTINGALE.

WHILE light-wing’d zephyrs waft each tender note,

Thine early energies, sweet bird, attune;

The harsh NIGHT-RAVEN opes his clamorous throat,

And screams, ill-omen’d, at the western moon.

While live those horrid discords, cease thy song,

Ah! cease, till silence hover o’er the vale,

Where the charm’d echoes shall thy strains prolong,

Till from the dawn swift flies the moon-beam pale.

Flies like the fairy dream of youthful joy,

Before the gloomy scoul of haggard CARE:

Were mine thy voice, sweet warbler, I’d employ

Its varied cadences to sooth DESPAIR.

Dark fiend of life—may his unhallow’d tread

Ne’er print the path in which I’m doom’d to go:

What tho’ the hours of vernal HOPE be fled,

May comforts still attend my days of woe.

Ev’n as the voice of MELODY is thine,

To chaunt the requiem of thy murder’d mate:

So be some tender consolation mine,

Thro’ all the dark severities of FATE.

Sweet warbler! raise once more the plaintive strain,

That swells in unison with ACHMED’s heart,

Long doom’d in suffering silence to remain,

Or only to the breeze its griefs impart.

Haply at times the breeze responsive sigh’d—

Methought I heard some sympathetic soul:

And as its low faint breathings gently died,

My heart scarce heaved, ’twas NATURE’s own controul.

Sweet warbler, how I love thy lonely lay,

How heav’nly-soothing ’midst th’ obscure of night,

That seems to linger on the verge of day,

Withheld by melancholy, soft delight.

Withheld like me, in magic circle bound,

Tho’ wearied nature claim the balm of rest,

All mute I stand upon th’ enchanted ground,

In the lorn spirit of thy wild notes blest.

Sweet warbler! cease not, close not yet the song,

Whose harmony delays the twilight hour:

’Till bright the MORN arise, its strains prolong,

The minstrels of the day shall own thy power;

While the glad vales their loveliest blooms disclose,

To greet the beauties of thy darling ROSE.