NIGHT NIGHTINGALE
I was heavy with the even,
When she fit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
Now black and deep the Night begins to fall,
A shade immense! Sunk in the quenching Gloom,
Magnificent and vast, are heaven and earth.
Order confounded lies; all beauty void,
Distinction lost, and gay variety
One universal blot: such the fair power
Of light, to kindle and create the whole.
Come, drink the mystic wine of Night,
Brimming with silence and the stars;
While earth, bathed in this holy light,
Is seen without its scars.
Louis Untermeyer—The Wine of Night.
When, upon orchard and lane, breaks the
white foam of the Spring
When, in extravagant revel, the Dawn, a
Bacchante upleaping,
Spills, on the tresses of Night, vintages
golden and red
When, as a token at parting, munificent Day
for remembrance,
Gives, unto men that forget, Ophirs of fabulous
ore.
WmuiM Watson—Hymn to the Sea. Pt. III.
.
Mysterious night! when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame.,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
•Joseph Blanco White—Night and Death.
The summer skies are darkly blue,
The days are still and bright,
And Evening trails her robes of gold
Through the dim halls of Night.
Sarah H. P. Whitman—Summer's Call.
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Withers—Mistresse of Philarete.
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| text = Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor list'ning ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. "lis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night I. L. 18.
How is night's sable mantle labor'd o'er ;
How richly wrought with attributes divine!
What wisdom shines! what love! this midnight
pomp,
This gorgeous arch, with golden worlds inlaid
Built with divine ambition!
Young—Night Thoughts. Night IV. L. 385.
Mine is the night, with all her stars.
Young—Paraphrase on Job. L. 147.
u NIGHTINGALE
I have heard the nightingale herself.
King Agesilaus when asked to listen to a
man imitate the nightingale. Plutarch—
Life of Agesilaus.
Hark! ah, the nightingale—
The tawny-throated!
Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!—what pain!
Listen, Eugenia—
How thick the bursts come crowding through
the leaves!
Again—thou hearest?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!
Matthew Arnold—Philomela. L. 32.
For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,
So poets live upon the living light.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. Home.
As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made.
Richard Barnfield—Address to the Nightingale.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
| author = Byron
| work = Parisina. St. 1.
"Most musical, most melancholy" bird!
A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
Coleridge—The Nightingale. L. 13.
'Tls 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 him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!
Coleridge—The Nightingale. L. 43.
Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winter's past or coming void of care,
Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling
flowers.
Drummond—Sonnet. To a Nightingale.
Like a wedding-song all-melting
Sings the nightingale, the dear one.
Heine—Book of Songs. Donna Clara.
The nightingale appear'd the first,
And as her melody she sang,
The apple into blossom burst,
To life the grass and violets sprang.
Heine—Book of Songs. New Spring. No. 9.
