Home ⇒ 📌Elizabeth Barrett Browning ⇒ The Poet And The Bird
The Poet And The Bird
Said a people to a poet -” Go out from among us straightway!
While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
There’s a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways
Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!”
The poet went out weeping – the nightingale ceased chanting;
“Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?”
I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,
Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun.”
The poet went out weeping, – and died abroad, bereft there –
The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails: –
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there
Was only of the poet’s song, and not the nightingale’s.
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