O NIGHTINGALE and cuckoo! it was meet That you should come together; for ye twain Are emblems of the rapture and the pain That in the April of our life compete, Until we know not which is the more sweet, Nor yet have learned that both of them are vain! Yet why, O nightingale! break off thy strain, While yet the cuckoo doth his call repeat? Not so with me. To sweet woe die I cling Long after echoing happiness was dead, And so found solace. Now, alas! the sting! Cuckoo and nightingale alike have fled; Neither for joy nor sorrow do I sing, And autumn silence gathers in their stead. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MODERN LOVE: 30 by GEORGE MEREDITH HESPERUS THE BRINGER by SAPPHO DRUM TAPS TO HEAVEN by JAMES CHURCH ALVORD PRAYER by ANTON ALEXANDER VON AUERSPERG A CHARACTER OF JOSEPH PRIESTLY by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD RECOLLECTIONS by BERNARD BARTON |