Classic Poem

What though mine ear hath never heard
The wing'd voice of the sky?
Nor listened to the love-lorn bird
Whose plaints in darkness die?

The poets improvise for me
Lark-notes that never fail,
And make more sweet than sound can be
The song of nightingale.

From rapt Alastor's lyric leaves
Joy's flying carol springs!
On darkling pinion sorrow grieves
When Adonais sings.

I list the lavrock warbling clear
In birks of bonny Doon;
The bulbul's swooning voice I hear,
Beneath the Persian moon.

I hear across the centuries
What Philomela sung,
In Attic groves, to Sophocles,
When Poesie was young.