by Samuel Gower.
Originally published in Hood's Magazine (Henry Hurst) vol.6 #5 (Nov 1846).
The Nightingale
In this still hour each sound, perceiv'd to cease,
Leaves a hush'd sense of pure and utter peace.
The stars on high their silent vigil keep,
The breeze is lull'd, all nature seems to sleep,
Except yon Bird of night, who sweetly sings,
And shakes th' unheeded dew from off his wings.
Hark! how the feather'd songster's warbling throat,
Gushing with music, sends its sweets afloat
Through murm'ring leaves, across the rippling wave,
Whose green and willowy shores the currents lave.
Oh! listen, how that Nightingale forlorn
Links, with his tunes, dull night to jocund morn.
Would that my notes could rival yonder bird's!
That I could turn such music into words!
Interpreter of love! prolong thy lay,
And wing my soul from earthly spheres away.
Are thine, like human pleasures, born of pain?
Such is, methinks, the moral of thy strain—
The Lark
But the scene changes; the rous'd lark awakes;
The morning-chime her dewy slumbers breaks.
Grey gleams the dawn while here I, listening, lie;
Star after star withdraws its sparkling eye:
And she, her cheerful matins to the Sun,
Ere he arise, to greet him, has begun;
Tow'ring aloft, to catch his smiles the first,
Ere, on the world below, his splendours burst:—
The night-bird's songs were but as loving dreams,—
All life—love—joy—herself, morn's minstrel seems!
Hampstead, October, 1846.