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                As night is withdrawn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 III. 9. “A winter’s night with the snow about”
2. Shorter Poems. Book V. 3. “Since to Be Loved Endures”
3. Shorter Poems. Book V. 15. “The north wind came up yesternight”
4. Shorter Poems. Book V. 13. “A Song of My Heart, as the Sun Peered o’er the Sea”
5. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 10. “O Love, my muse, how was’t for me”

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