Page:Collected poems vol 1 de la mare.djvu/182

 HOU solitary!" the Blackbird cried, "I, from the happy Wren, Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing — Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale? Do not the dews of darkness steep All pinings of the day in sleep? Why, then, when rocked in starry nest We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?" A Moon was there. So still her beam, It seemed the whole world lay in dream, Lulled by the watery sea. And from her leafy night-hung nook Upon this stranger soft did look The Nightingale: sighed he: —

"'Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher But yestermorn conjured me here