Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1048

 Know ye how men say That ye haunt no more Isle and grassy shore With your moonlit play; That ye dance not here, White-robed spirits of sleep, All the bummer night Threading dances light?

842 Nightingales

BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streanib, wheiefrom

Ye learn your song

Where are those starry woods ? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long'

Nay, barren arc those mountains and spent tke streams Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,

A throe of the heart,

Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,

Ab night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of

May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day

Welcome the dawn,

�� �