The Nightingale’s Song

From “Music’s Duel” NOW westward Sol had spent the richest beams Of noon’s high glory, when, hard by the streams Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat, Under protection of an oak, there sat A sweet lute’s-master, in whose gentle airs He lost the day’s heat and his own hot cares. Close in the covert of the leaves there stood A nightingale, come from the neighboring wood (The sweet inhabitant of each glad tree, Their muse, their siren, harmless siren she): There stood she listening, and did entertain The music’s soft report, and mould the same In her own murmurs; that whatever mood His curious fingers lent, her voice made good.* * * * * This lesson too She gives them back; her supple breast thrills out Sharp airs, and staggers in a warbling doubt Of dallying sweetness, hovers o’er her skill, And folds in waved notes, with a trembling bill, The pliant series of her slippery song; Then starts she suddenly into a throng Of short thick sobs, whose thundering volleys float, And roll themselves over her lubric throat In panting murmurs, stilled out of her breast; That ever-bubbling spring, the sugared nest Of her delicious soul, that there does lie Bathing in streams of liquid melody; Music’s best seed-plot; when in ripened airs A golden-headed harvest fairly rears His honey-dropping tops ploughed by her breath Which there reciprocally laboreth. In that sweet soil it seems a holy quire, Sounded to the name of great Apollo’s lyre; Whose silver roof rings with the sprightly notes Of sweet-lipped angel-imps, that swill their throats In cream of morning Helicon, and then Prefer soft anthems to the ears of men, To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing (Most divine service), whose so early lay Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day. There might you hear her kindle her soft voice In the close murmur of a sparkling noise; And lay the groundwork of her hopeful song. Still keeping in the forward stream so long, Till a sweet whirlwind (striving to get out) Heaves her soft bosom, wanders round about, And makes a pretty earthquake in her breast, Till the fledged notes at length forsake their nest, Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the sky, Winged with their own wild echoes, prattling fly. She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a tide Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride On the waved back of every swelling strain, Rising and falling in a pompous train; And while she thus discharges a shrill peal Of flashing airs, she qualifies their zeal With the cool epode of a graver note; Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat Would reach the brazen voice of war’s hoarse bird; Her little soul is ravished, and so poured Into loose ecstasies, that she is placed Above herself, music’s enthusiast.