Nightingales

"I have heard the nightingale herself."

"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!"

"For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light."

"As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap, and birds did sing, Trees did grow, and plants did spring; Every thing did banish moan, Save the nightingale alone."

"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."

"The holy nightingale Winds up his long, long shakes of ecstasy, With notes that seem but the protracted sounds Of glassy runnels bubbling over rocks."

"Birds of the wilderness! Ye woodland choristers of many dyes! Wake ye not in the night at my distress, Poured forth more deep than all your melodies? How can ye sleep beneath the boundless sea Of my soul's grief poured forth in melody?"

""Most musical, most melancholy" bird! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy."

"'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-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!"

"I said to the Nightingale: "Hail, all hail! Pierce with thy trill the dark, Like a glittering music-spark, When the earth grows pale and dumb.""

"Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale, The sweetest singer in all the forest choir, Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale: Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier."

"Westminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might sing."

"Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours, Of winter's past or coming void of care, Well pleaséd with delights which present are, Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers."

"Vox, philomela, tua cantus edicere cogit, Inde tui laudem rustica lingua canit."

"Like a wedding-song all-melting Sings the nightingale, the dear one."

"The nightingale appear'd the first, And as her melody she sang, The apple into blossom burst, To life the grass and violets sprang."

"Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth."

"Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown."

"Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?"

"Soft as Memnon's harp at morning, To the inward ear devout, Touched by light, with heavenly warning Your transporting chords ring out. Every leaf in every nook, Every wave in every brook, Chanting with a solemn voice Minds us of our better choice."

"To-night, beneath an operatic moon I listened to the flattered nightingale, Ornate, melodious, impeccable— Round notes of fluted silver soft as dew— The soul of Tennyson become a bird."

"To the red rising moon, and loud and deep The nightingale is singing from the steep."

"What bird so sings, yet does so wail? O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale— Jug, jug, jug, jug—tereu—she cries, And still her woes at midnight rise."

"Sweet bird that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chauntress, oft, the woods among, I woo, to hear thy even-song."

"O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still; Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill While the jolly hours lead on propitious May."

"Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love."

"—————As the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note."

"John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674) Book III"

"Yon nightingale, whose strain so sweetly flows, Mourning her ravish'd young or much-loved mate, A soothing charm o'er all the valleys throws And skies, with notes well tuned to her sad state."

"Have ye seen the ethereal blue Gently shedding silvery dew, Spangling o’er the silent green, While the nightingale, unseen, To the moon and stars, full bright, Lonesome chants the hymn of night?"

"The sunrise wakes the lark to sing, The moonrise wakes the nightingale. Come, darkness, moonrise, everything That is so silent, sweet, and pale: Come, so ye wake the nightingale."

"Hark! that's the nightingale, Telling the self-same tale Her song told when this ancient earth was young: So echoes answered when her song was sung In the first wooded vale."

"Ἦρος ἄγγελος ἰμερόφωνος ἀήδων."

"O Nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale."

"One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody."

"The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season'd are To their right praise, and true perfection!"

"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."

"Our love was new, and then but in the spring, When I was wont to greet it with my lays; As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing, And stops her pipe in growth of riper days."

"The nightingale as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making. And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth."

"Where beneath the ivy shade, In the dew-besprinkled glade, Many a love-lorn nightingale, Warbles sweet her plaintive tale."

"Lend me your song, ye Nightingales! O, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse."

"En la huerta nasce la rosa: quiérome ir allá por mirar al ruiseñor cómo cantavá."

"Under der linden An der heide, Dâ unser zweier bette was, Dâ muget ir vinden Schône beide Gebrochen bluomen unde gras. Vor dem walde in einem tal, Tandaradei, Schône sanc diu nahtegal."

"Last night the nightingale woke me, Last night, when all was still. It sang in the golden moonlight, From out the woodland hill."