A CONVERSATION POEM. APRIL, 1798.
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,
(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with him
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain.
* "Most musical, most melancholy." This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity, to a line in Milton.
And many a poet echoes the conceit :
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moon-light, to the influxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in Nature's immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so. And youths and maidens most poetical, Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.//
My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt A different lore; we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis 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-chaunt, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!
And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the white grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moon
Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,
Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve
(Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate
To something more than Nature in the grove) Glides through the pathways; she knows all their
That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space, What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and these wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perched giddily
On blossom twig still swinging from the breeze,
And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my Friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence.
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage! and I watched. Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight; and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes "Tis well to be bereft of promised good, That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had crossed the mighty orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still *Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY.
DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe,
That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount Hight Castalie and (sureties of thy faith) That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce The world's low cares and lying vanities,
Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse, And washed and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son;
*Flew creaking. Some mouths after I had written this line, it gave me pleasure to find that Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. "When these birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate, and regular; and even when at a considerable distance, or high above us, we plainly hear the quillfeathers; their shafts and webs upon one another creak as the joints or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea."
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