Yes, i have heard the nightingale.
As in dark woods I wandered,
And dreamed and pondered,
A voice passed by all fire
And passion and desire;
I rather felt than heard
The song of that lone bird:
Yes, I have heard the nightingale.
Yes, I have heard the nightingale.
I heard it, and I followed;...
When late I heard the trembling cello play,
In every face I read sad memories
That from dark, secret chambers where they lay
Rose, and looked forth from melancholy eyes.
So every mournful thought found there a tone
To match despondence: sorrow knew its mate;
Ill fortune sighed, and mute despair made moan;
And one deep chord gave answer, “...
Her voice was like the song of birds;
Her eyes were like the stars;
Her little waving hands were like
Birds’ wings that beat the bars.
And when those waving hands were still,—
Her soul had fled away,—
The music faded from the air,
The color from the day.
Ah, be not false, sweet Splendor!
Be true, be good;
Be wise as thou art tender;
Be all that Beauty should.
Not lightly be thy citadel subdued;
Not ignobly, not untimely.
Take praise in solemn mood;
Take love sublimely.
She lives in light, not shadow;
Not silence, but the sound
Which thrills the stars of heaven
And trembles from the ground.
She breathes a finer ether,
Beholds a keener sun;
In her supernal being
Music and light are one.
Unknown the subtle senses
That lead her through the day;
Love, light, and song and...
I heard the bells of Bethlehem ring—
Their voice was sweeter than the priests’;
I heard the birds of Bethlehem sing
Unbidden in the churchly feasts.
They clung and sung on the swinging chain
High in the dim and incensed air;
The priests, with repetitions vain,
Chanted a never-ending prayer.
So bell and bird and priest...
Star-dust and vaporous light,—
The mist of worlds unborn,—
A shuddering in the awful night
Of winds that bring the morn.
Now comes the dawn: the circling earth;
Creatures that fly and crawl;
And Man, that last, imperial birth;
And Christ, the flower of all.
If jesus Christ is a man,—
And only a man,—I say
That of all mankind I cleave to him,
And to him will I cleave alway.
If Jesus Christ is a God,—
And the only God,—I swear
I will follow Him through heaven and hell,
The earth, the sea, and the air!
He speaks not well who doth his time deplore,
Naming it new and little and obscure,
Ignoble and unfit for lofty deeds.
All times were modern in the time of them,
And this no more than others. Do thy part
Here in the living day, as did the great
Who made old days immortal! So shall men,
Gazing long back to this far-looming hour,
...
Through love to light! Oh wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o’er the sea.
Through love to light! Through light, O God, to thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!
