The Nightingale

WHEN the moon a golden-pale
   Lustre on my casement flings,
An enchanted nightingale
   In the haunted silence sings.

Strange the song—its wondrous words
   Taken from the primal tongue,
Known to men, and beasts, and birds,
   When the care-worn world was young

Listening low, I hear the stars
   Through her strains move solemnly,
And on lonesome banks and bars
   Hear the sobbing of the sea.

And my memory dimly gropes
   Hints to gather from her song
Of forgotten fears and hopes,
   Joys and griefs forgotten long.

And I feel once more the strife
   Of a passion, fierce and grand,
That, in some long-vanished life,
   Held my soul at its command.

Ah, my Love, in robes of white
   Standing by a moonlit sea,
Like a lily of the night,
   Hast thou quite forgotten me?

Dost thou never dream at whiles
   Of that silent, templed vale,
And the dim wood in whose aisles
   Sang a secret nightingale?

Whither hast thou gone? What star
   Holds thy spirit pure and fine?
In this world below there are
   None like thee: and thou wert mine!

For a season all things last,
   Love and Joy, and Life and Death;
Thou art portion of my past,
   I of thine, whilst Time draws breath.

Fades the moonlight golden-pale,
   And the bird has ceased to sing—
Ah, it was no nightingale,
   But my heart—remembering.