A FABLE I SAID a people to a poet -- 'Go out from among us straightway! While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine: There's a little fair brown nightingale who, sitting in the gateway, Makes fitter music to our ear than any song of thine!' II The poet went out weeping; the nightingale ceased chanting: 'Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?' -- 'I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting, Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun.' III The poet went out weeping, and died abroad, bereft there; The bird flew to his grave and died amid a thousand wails: And when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL by ROBERT BROWNING THE AGED STRANGER; AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR by FRANCIS BRET HARTE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 8. MUHAIMIN by EDWIN ARNOLD LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE CHANT by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE |