"Most musical, most melancholy" bird! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy.

'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 h ...

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or ...

Hark! ah, the nightingale The tawny-throated! Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark! what pain! Again thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!

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 ...

Sweet bird that shunn'st the nose of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown.

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love.

Where the nightingale doth sing not a senseless, tranced thing, but divine melodious truth.