Classic Poem

The Nightingale

This is the month, the Nightingale, clod-brown,
Is heard among the woodland shady boughs;
This is the time when, in the vale, grass-grown
The maiden hears at eve, her lovers vows.
What time the blue mist, round her patient cows,
Dim rises from the grass, and half conceals
Their dappled hides, — I hear the Nightingale,
That from the little blackthorn spinny steals,
To the old hazel hedge that skirts the vale,
And still unseen, sings sweet: — the ploughman feels
The thrilling music, as he goes along,
And imitates and listens, — while the fields
Lose all their paths in dusk, to lead him wrong
Still sings the Nightingale her sweet melodious song.