For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,
So poets live upon the living light.

For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,
So poets live upon the living light.

What bird so sings, yet does so wail?
O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale--
Jug, jug, jug, jug--tereu, read more

What bird so sings, yet does so wail?
O, 'tis the ravish'd nightingale--
Jug, jug, jug, jug--tereu, she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.

Hark! that's the nightingale,
Telling the self-same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
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Hark! that's the nightingale,
Telling the self-same tale
Her song told when this ancient earth was young:
So echoes answered when her song was sung
In the first wooded vale.

To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep.

To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep.

Like a wedding-song all-melting
Sings the nightingale, the dear one.

Like a wedding-song all-melting
Sings the nightingale, the dear one.

Soft as Memnon's harp at morning,
To the inward ear devout,
Touched by light, with heavenly warning
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Soft as Memnon's harp at morning,
To the inward ear devout,
Touched by light, with heavenly warning
Your transporting chords ring out.
Every leaf in every nook,
Every wave in every brook,
Chanting with a solemn voice
Minds us of our better choice.

The angel of spring, the mellow-throated nightingale.

The angel of spring, the mellow-throated nightingale.

Hark! ah, the nightingale--
The tawny-throated!
Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
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Hark! ah, the nightingale--
The tawny-throated!
Hark from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark!--what pain!
. . . .
Again--thou hearest?
Eternal passion!
Eternal pain!

As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.