Classic Poem

I

INTRODUCTION

Would I might hear the nightingale!
But what can wishing so avail?
Would I might hear the mocking-bird!
Or would that I, for once, had heard
The singers try a match,
With pipe and trill and catch;
With flavored sylvan fancies blent;
Of all love's sweetness redolent;
With quick, delicious passaging;
And racy rondels of the spring!

Would I through verdurous ways might wend
Of some old forest that should blend
The charm of every clime!
With tangled copse and open glade,
And spicy depth of denser shade;
There lissome vines should droop and cling,
And clumps of musky blossoms swing;
And there should play an idle breeze
To toss the bloom of scented trees.
The day should shine without a stain,
With Eden weather come again.
Beneath a bower of jessamine,
With passion-flower and eglantine,
There, on the matted moss, to lie
And hear the pleasant rivalry!

II

THE MOCKING-BIRD

Then first a liquid joy should float
From out the native wilding's throat.
With frenzied eye, and quivering wing,
And 'passioned power that bird should sing;
With wild and mounting rhapsody
As though he pined to pierce the sky;
And when the last full marvel fell
There should be silence like a spell.

III

THE NIGHTINGALE

When time for brooding calm was o'er,
Then might the touching silence break,
With half a sob and half a song,
To bid such lovely echoes wake
As never woke in wood before:
Then might the bird his trillets throng,
As though he must his thanks express
In a burst of tenderness.

IV

To crown my transport, at the end,
These two one perfect song should blend;
And from a wild magnolia tree
Might steal the haunting melody.
So weirdly sweet the stream would swell
From singers singing far too well
Their thirst in harmony to slake —
Sudden — the gentle hearts would break.
And with a mortal ecstasy
In one long burst of rapture die.
Perchance, what these, God-taught, had sung
Might loose, at last, my tuneless tongue:
I such a spot, on such a day,
I, too, might sing my soul away.