About The Nightingale

Related poetry:

1. The Nightingale No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, But hear no murmuring: it flows silently. O’er its soft bed of verdure. All is still. […]...
2. The Sick Man and the Nightingale (From Lenau.) So late, and yet a nightingale? Long since have dropp’d the blossoms pale, The summer fields are ripening, And yet a sound of spring? O tell me, didst thou come to hear, Sweet Spring, that I should die this year; And call’st across from the far shore To me one greeting more?...
3. Early Nightingale When first we hear the shy-come nightingales, They seem to mutter o’er their songs in fear, And, climb we e’er so soft the spinney rails, All stops as if no bird was anywhere. The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin Let curious eyes to search a long way in, Until impatience cannot see or […]...
4. To the Nightingale Sister of love-lorn Poets, Philomel! How many Bards in city garret pent, While at their window they with downward eye Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell’d mud, And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen (Those hoarse unfeather’d Nightingales of Time!), How many wretched Bards address thy name, And hers, the full-orb’d Queen that […]...
5. To The Nightingale O Nightingale! that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love; O, if […]...
6. Sonnet to the Nightingale O nightingale that on yon blooming spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hopes the Lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love. O if […]...
7. 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; […]...
8. The Chinese Nightingale A Song in Chinese Tapestries “How, how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said, “San Francisco sleeps as the dead- Ended license, lust and play: Why do you iron the night away? Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. While the monster shadows glower and […]...
9. The Nightingale NO easy matter ’tis to hold, Against its owner’s will, the fleece Who troubled by the itching smart Of Cupid’s irritating dart, Eager awaits some Jason bold To grant release. E’en dragon huge, or flaming steer, When Jason’s loved will cause no fear. Duennas, grating, bolt and lock, All obstacles can naught avail; Constraint is […]...
10. The Nightingale's Nest Up this green woodland-ride let’s softly rove, And list the nightingale – she dwells just here. Hush! let the wood-gate softly clap, for fear The noise might drive her from her home of love ; For here I’ve heard her many a merry year- At morn, at eve, nay, all the live-long day, As though […]...
11. Second Ode to the Nightingale BLEST be thy song, sweet NIGHTINGALE, Lorn minstrel of the lonely vale! Where oft I’ve heard thy dulcet strain In mournful melody complain; When in the POPLAR’S trembling shade, At Evening’s purple hour I’ve stray’d, While many a silken folded flow’r Wept on its couch of Gossamer, And many a time in pensive mood Upon […]...
12. Life I leave the office, take the stairs, In time to mail a letter Before 3 in the afternoon the last dispatch. The red, white and blue air mail Falls past the slot for foreign mail And hits bottom with a sound That tells me my letter is alone. They will have to bring in a […]...
13. A Translation Of The Nightingale Out Of Strada Now the declining sun ‘gan downwards bend From higher heavens, and from his locks did send A milder flame, when near to Tiber’s flow A lutinist allay’d his careful woe With sounding charms, and in a greeny seat Of shady oake took shelter from the heat. A Nightingale oreheard him, that did use To sojourn […]...
14. You Thought I Was That Type You thought I was that type: That you could forget me, And that I’d plead and weep And throw myself under the hooves of a bay mare, Or that I’d ask the sorcerers For some magic potion made from roots and send you a terrible gift: My precious perfumed handkerchief. Damn you! I will not […]...
15. What Birds Plunge Through Is Not The Intimate Space What birds plunge through is not the intimate space, In which you see all Forms intensified. (In the Open, denied, you would lose yourself, Would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and translates Things: To become the very essence of a tree, Throw inner space around it, from that space That lives in […]...
16. Apollonius Of Tyana In Rhodes Apollonius was talking about Proper education and conduct with a young Man who was building a luxurious House in Rhodes. “As for me” said the Tyanian At last, “when I enter a temple However small it may be, I very much prefer To see a statue of ivory and gold Than a clay and vulgar […]...
17. Caboose Thoughts IT’S going to come out all right—do you know? The sun, the birds, the grass—they know. They get along—and we’ll get along. Some days will be rainy and you will sit waiting And the letter you wait for won’t come, And I will sit watching the sky tear off gray and gray And the letter […]...
18. To The Nightingale Sweet bird, that sing’st away the early hours Of winters past or coming, void of care, Well pleased with delights which present are, (Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers) To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers Thou thy Creator’s goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare: A […]...
19. Ode To A Nightingale My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In […]...
20. To The Nightingale Exert thy Voice, sweet Harbinger of Spring! This Moment is thy Time to sing, This Moment I attend to Praise, And set my Numbers to thy Layes. Free as thine shall be my Song; As thy Musick, short, or long. Poets, wild as thee, were born, Pleasing best when unconfin’d, When to Please is least […]...
21. Mercian Hymns XXV Brooding on the eightieth letter of Fors Clavigera, I speak this in Memory of my grandmother, whose childhood and prime womanhood were spent In the nailer’s darg. The nailshop stood back of the cottage, by the fold. It reeked stale Mineral sweat. Sparks had furred its low roof. In dawn-light the Troughed water floated a […]...
22. Ode to the Nightingale SWEET BIRD OF SORROW! ­why complain In such soft melody of Song, That ECHO, am’rous of thy Strain, The ling’ring cadence doth prolong? Ah! tell me, tell me, why, Thy dulcet Notes ascend the sky. Or on the filmy vapours glide Along the misty moutain’s side? And wherefore dost Thou love to dwell, In the […]...
23. Sonnet III: To a Nightingale Poor melancholy bird – that all night long Tell’st to the Moon, thy tale of tender woe; From what sad cause can such sweet sorrow flow, And whence this mournful melody of song? Thy poet’s musing fancy would translate What mean the sounds that swell thy little breast, When still at dewy eve thou leav’st […]...
24. Duddingstone WITH caws and chirrupings, the woods In this thin sun rejoice. The Psalm seems but the little kirk That sings with its own voice. The cloud-rifts share their amber light With the surface of the mere – I think the very stones are glad To feel each other near. Once more my whole heart leaps […]...
25. Bag Of Mice I dreamt your suicide note Was scrawled in pencil on a brown paperbag, & in the bag were six baby mice. The bag Opened into darkness, Smoldering From the top down. The mice, Huddled at the bottom, scurried the bag Across a shorn field. I stood over it & as the burning reached each carbon […]...
26. Thief of the Moon Thief of the moon, thou robber of old delight, Thy charms have stolen the star-gold, quenched the moon – Cold, cold are the birds that, bubbling out of night, Cried once to my ears their unremembered tune – Dark are those orchards, their leaves no longer shine, No orange’s gold is globed like moonrise there […]...
27. Bee! I'm expecting you! Bee! I’m expecting you! Was saying Yesterday To Somebody you know That you were due The Frogs got Home last Week Are settled, and at work Birds, mostly back The Clover warm and thick You’ll get my Letter by The seventeenth; Reply Or better, be with me Yours, Fly....
28. Camouflage Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds, “I’ve got a letter here,” he said, “that no one’s understood, Addressed as follows: ‘To the bird that’s like a piece of wood.’ “The soldier bird got very cross it wasn’t meant for her; […]...
29. Confetti In The Wind He wrote a letter in his mind To answer one a maid had sent; He sought the fitting word to find, As on by hill and rill he went. By bluebell wood and hawthorn lane, The cadence sweet and silken phrase He incubated in his brain For days and days. He wrote his letter on […]...
30. It's Ours there is always that space there Just before they get to us That space That fine relaxer The breather While say Flopping on a bed Thinking of nothing Or say Pouring a glass of water from the Spigot While entranced by Nothing That Gentle pure Space It’s worth Centuries of Existence Say Just to scratch […]...
31. Everything That Acts Is Actual From the tawny light From the rainy nights From the imagination finding Itself and more than itself Alone and more than alone At the bottom of the well where the moon lives, Can you pull me Into December? a lowland Of space, perception of space Towering of shadows of clouds blown upon Clouds over new […]...
32. Do You Want Affidavits? THERE’S a hole in the bottom of the sea. Do you want affidavits? There’s a man in the moon with money for you. Do you want affidavits? There are ten dancing girls in a sea-chamber off Nantucket waiting for you. There are tall candles in Timbuctoo burning penance for you. There are-anything else? Speak now-for […]...
33. A Miracle For Breakfast At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee, Waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb That was going to be served from a certain balcony -like kings of old, or like a miracle. It was still dark. One foot of the sun Steadied itself on a long ripple in the river. The first ferry of […]...
34. By The Arno The oleander on the wall Grows crimson in the dawning light, Though the grey shadows of the night Lie yet on Florence like a pall. The dew is bright upon the hill, And bright the blossoms overhead, But ah! the grasshoppers have fled, The little Attic song is still. Only the leaves are gently stirred […]...
35. Why Do Birds Sing? Let poets piece prismatic words, Give me the jewelled joy of birds! What ecstasy moves them to sing? Is it the lyric glee of Spring, The dewy rapture of the rose? Is it the worship born in those Who are of Nature’s self a part, The adoration of the heart? Is it the mating mood […]...
36. PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS I want a true history of my city FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY And all his descendants With their particular vilenesses – I met one in the sixties Who had all the coldness of Himmler So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti. I want a history responsive To […]...
37. Purgatory And suppose the darlings get to Mantua, Suppose they cheat the crypt, what next? Begin With him, unshaven. Though not, I grant you, a Displeasing cockerel, there’s egg yolk on his chin. His seedy robe’s aflap, he’s got the rheum. Poor dear, the cooking lard has smoked her eye. Another Montague is in the womb […]...
38. Lux, My Fair Falcon Lux, my fair falcon, and your fellows all, How well pleasant it were your liberty. Ye not forsake me that fair might ye befall, But they that sometime liked my company, Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl. Lo, what a proof in light adversity. But ye, my birds, I swear by all your […]...
39. Bookshelf I like to think that when I fall, A rain-drop in Death’s shoreless sea, This shelf of books along the wall, Beside my bed, will mourn for me. Regard it. . . . Aye, my taste is queer. Some of my bards you may disdain. Shakespeare and Milton are not here; Shelly and Keats you […]...
40. The Harvest Moon The flame-red moon, the harvest moon, Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing, A vast balloon, Till it takes off, and sinks upward To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon. The harvest moon has come, Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon. And the earth replies all night, like a deep […]...