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,]1 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As night is withdrawn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,]1
Dream, while the innumerable choir of day
Welcome the dawn