Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONGS ON THE VOICES OF BIRDS; THE NIGHTINGALE AND UNSATISFIED HEART, by JEAN INGELOW


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SONGS ON THE VOICES OF BIRDS; THE NIGHTINGALE AND UNSATISFIED HEART, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When in a may-day hush
Last Line: Whose fate is still to yearn, and not be satisfied.'
Subject(s): Birds; Echo (mythology); Hearts; Nightingales


WHEN in a May-day hush
Chanteth the Missel-thrush,
The harp o' the heart makes answer with murmurous stirs;
When Robin-redbreast sings,
We think on budding springs,
And Culvers when they coo are love's remembrancers.

But thou in the trance of light
Stayest the feeding night,
And Echo makes sweet her lips with the utterance wise,
And casts at our glad feet,
In a wisp of fancies fleet,
Life's fair, life's unfulfilled, impassioned prophecies.

Her central thought full well
Thou hast the wit to tell,
To take the sense o' the dark and to yield it so;
The moral of moon light
To set in a cadence bright,
And sing our loftiest dream that we thought none did know.

I have no nest as thou,
Bird on the blossoming bough,
Yet over thy tongue outfloweth the song o' my soul,
Chanting, 'Forego thy strife,
The spirit out-acts the life,
But much is seldom theirs who can perceive the whole.

'Thou drawest a perfect lot
All thine, but holden not,
Lie low, at the feet of beauty that ever shall bide;
There might be sorer smart
Than thine, far-seeing heart,
Whose fate is still to yearn, and not be satisfied.'






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