In a low dim-lighted pen Scann'd of tramps and fishermen! Fare thee well, companion dear! Fare for ever well, nor fear, O NIGHTINGALE, THAT ON YON BLOOMY SPRAY. John Milton. O NIGHTINGALE that on yon bloomy spray Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. John Keats. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where beauty can not keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I can not see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, Darkling, I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Was it a vision, or a waking dream? PHILOMELA. Matthew Arnold. HARK! ah, the nightingale The tawny-throated! Hark, from the moonlit cedar what a burst! O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old world pain — Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, |