O Nightingale My Heart

O Nightingale my heart
How sad thou art!
How heavy is thy wing,
Desperately whirrëd that thy throat may fling
Song to the tingling silences remote!
Thine eye whose ruddy spark
Burned fiery of late,
How dead and dark!
Why so soon didst thou sing,
And with such turbulence of love and hate?

Learn that there is no singing yet can bring
The expected dawn more near;
And thou art spent already, though the night
Scarce has begun;
What voice, what eyes wilt thou have for the light
When the light shall appear,
And O what wings to bear thee t'ward the Sun?

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols (1893–1944) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and war poet of the First World War. He was one of the most prominent poets of the war generation and served as an artillery officer on the Western Front. His poetry often reflects the horrors of war and his experiences. Nichols was also involved in literary circles in both England and the United States. Throughout his career, he published several volumes of poetry, plays, and a novel.

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols

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Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Nightingale.

How passing sad!    Listen, it sings again!
    Art thou a spirit, that amongst the boughs,
The livelong day dost chaunt that wond'rous strain
    Making wan Dian stoop her silver brows
Out of the clouds to hear thee?    Who shall say,
Thou lone one! that thy melody is gay,
Let him come listen now to that one note,
    That thou art pouring o'er and o'er again
Through the sweet echoes of thy mellow throat,
    With such a sobbing sound of deep, deep pain,
I prithee cease thy song! for from my heart
Thou hast made memory's bitter waters start,
    And filled my weary eyes with the soul's rain.

Frances Anne Kemble

O Nightingale! Thou Surely Art

O Nightingale! thou surely art
A creature of a "fiery heart":
These notes of thine, they pierce and pierce;
Tumultuous harmony and fierce!
Thou sing'st as if the God of wine
Had helped thee to a Valentine;
A song in mockery and despite
Of shades, and dews, and silent night;
And steady bliss, and all the loves
Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.
I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day;
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:
He did not cease; but cooed, and cooed;
And somewhat pensively he wooed:
He sang of love, with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith, and inward glee;
That was the song, the song for me!

William Wordsworth

The Dying Soldier To The Nightingale.

I plead with tears to thee,
Sweet warbler of the shade,
Breathe not such strains to me,
The sweetest ever made.
Who bade thee slight my woes?
Who taught to pierce my heart?
Leave me to death's repose,
Depart, sweet bird, depart.

Still come, with every strain,
Warm dreams of woeless days;
Still beam, on life's past plain,
Love's long lost golden rays,
That gleam on forms gone by,
On friends I called my own,
Who calmly rest, while I,
Wild wandering, weep alone.

But if thou still must sing,
Sing of my endless woes,
Of Life, a poisoned spring,
Of Love, a scattered rose;
Wail-warble those who weep,
Wild-warble but the brave;
To the wearied, sing of sleep,
And sing, to me, the grave.

A. H. Laidlaw

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.
A balmy night! and though the stars be dim,
Yet let us think upon the vernal showers
That gladden the green earth, and we shall find
A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
'Most musical, most melancholy' bird!
A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.
But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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 stain to human sense in sin that lours,
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs
(Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays.

William Henry Drummond

The Darksome Nightingale

Why dost thou, darksome Nightingale,
Sing so distractingly--and here?
Dawn's preludings prick my ear,
Faint light is creeping up the vale,
While on these dead thy rarer
Song falls, dark night-farer.

Were it not better thou shouldst sing
Where the drenched lilac droops her plume,
Spreading frail banners of perfume?
Or where the easeless pines enring
The river-lullèd village
Whose lads the lilac pillage?

Oh, if aught songful these hid bones
Might reach, like the slow subtle rain,
Surely the dead had risen again
And listened, white by the white stones;
Back to rich life song-charmed,
By ghostly joys alarmed.

This may not be. And yet, oh still
Pour like night dew thy richer speech
Some late-lost youth perchance to reach,
...

John Frederick Freeman