About The Nightingale

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)



From a letter from STC to Wordsworth after writing The Nightingale:

     In stale blank verse a subject stale
     I send per post my Nightingale;
     And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth,
     You'll tell me what you think, my Bird's worth.
     My own opinion's briefly this--
     His bill he opens not amiss;
     And when he has sung a stave or so,
     His breast, & some small space below,
     So throbs & swells, that you might swear
     No vulgar music's working there.
     So far, so good; but then, 'od rot him!
     There's something falls off at his bottom.
     Yet, sure, no wonder it should breed,
     That my Bird's Tail's a tail indeed
     And makes it's own inglorious harmony
     Æolio crepitû, non carmine.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
81

Quick analysis:

Scheme A AABBCCDDEEXXFFXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 732
Words 122
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 1, 16

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. more…

All Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems | Samuel Taylor Coleridge Books

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