Poem by Robert Seymour Bridges

Shorter Poems. Book V. 12. Nightingales

      Beautiful must be the mountains whence ye come,
      And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom
                        Ye learn your song:
    Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,
      Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air
                        Bloom the year long!

      Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:
      Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,
                        A throe of the heart,
    Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,
      No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,
                        For all our art.

      Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men
      We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,
                As night is withdrawn
    From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,
      Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
                Welcome the dawn.

1. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 25. “Say Who Is This with Silvered Hair”
2. Shorter Poems. Book III. 4. On a Dead Child
3. Shorter Poems. Book II. 8. Spring. Ode I
4. Shorter Poems. Book II. 9. Spring. Ode II
5. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 21. “The Birds That Sing on Autumn Eves”

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