Poem by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

The Poet and the Bird

Said a people to a poet---' Go out from among us straightway!
While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of divine.
There's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the gateways
Makes fitter music to our ears than any song of thine!'

The poet went out weeping---the nightingale ceased chanting;
'Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness done?'
I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting,
Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun.'

The poet went out weeping,---and died abroad, bereft there---
The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand wails:---
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left there
Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's. 

1. The Holy Night
2. Only a Curl
3. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 27. My own Belovëd, who hast lifted me
4. Sonnets from the Portuguese. 35. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
5. A Year's Spinning

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